Coin folders are ubiquitous enough that many non-hobbyists encounter them or try to fill them; for some, filling such folders is a catalyst for a life spent in numismatics. This blog writer was given a green Littleton folder for the first State Quarter program in the early 2000s and the experience of finding all 50 quarters, coupled with small inherited collections, had a huge impact on my life.
Before coin folders, however, collectors filled coin boards, flat cardboard presentation products with the familiar circular holes to receive and hold coins, labeled by date. Multiple companies published coin boards in the 1930s, into the 1940s.
The first coin board was designed in 1934 and similar products hit the market in the following years. Coin folders began supplanting them by the end of the decade and by the 1950s folders were the dominant storage method. Coin boards of different kinds still exist – think of the maps of the U.S. with slots for State or America the Beautiful quarters into which are inserted the circulating quarters of 1999 – 2021 – but folders are still, of the two products, the more widely used.
David Lange’s 2007 book Collecting Coin Boards of the 1930s and 1940s is an essential reference for collectors interested in coin boards – and their successors – and was the main source for this blog.
