Debbie Bradley: Hello. This is Debbie Bradley. Today I have Tom Pilitowski of US Rare Coin Investments as our Who's Who featured person of the week. Hi Tom, how's it going?

Debbie Bradley: I'm fine. Tell me, how did you get started in this hobby of numismatics?

Tom Pilitowski: Oh boy, that was a long time ago. When I was a little boy, I was home sick from school, and my older brother had been a coin collector and I paid him a tremendous favor by taking a pencil eraser to cleaning all of his coins to make them nice and shiny.

Debbie Bradley: Oh, not good.

Tom Pilitowski: No. Needless to say, he took it out on me when he got home from school. That was my first exposure in coins, and later when I was a teenager, I found an interesting dime in pocket change. It was a 1833 dime with the variety of the Last Three High. I was so intrigued by that dime, and I brought it to a local coin shop in Garwood, New Jersey and the offered nearly $100 for it and I was so intrigued by it that it became a profession.

Debbie Bradley: Yeah, $100 for a dime, not bad.

Tom Pilitowski: A lot of money back in 1969. Yeah.

Debbie Bradley: After that almost $100 dime, what caught your fancy?

Tom Pilitowski: What caught my fancy was how could such a little dime be that valuable. So, I bought a couple of books and I started studying about coins, and I went to a couple of coin shows, nothing really serious, until around 1979, when people started talking about silver and gold, and I became more and more interested, and actually opened up a same coin shop. Became partners with an older fellow who had a small shop, actually, on Highway 9 in a little town in Bayville, New Jersey. That lasted for six or eight months, and I finally opened up my shop on the Highway, Route I don't know, in Bricktown, New Jersey, and ultimately another shop on Main Street in Belmore. New Jersey. From there in just kept on growing.

Debbie Bradley: It sound like you were hooked.

Tom Pilitowski: Yeah, yeah, I think you could say I'm a lifer.

Debbie Bradley: Well, if you could select the first coin for someone to begin a collection with, well, what would you recommend?

Tom Pilitowski: Well a lot would depend on what that person likes and perhaps the kind of money that person was talking about buying a coin with. I've always had a weakness for gold coins and also silver dollars. I would probably try to swing that person into either Morgan Dollars or Peace Dollars, or even $20 gold pieces, just as a starter, but I would listen to that person to find out what does that person like, and if he really didn't know, I might suggest that he take a look through the Red Book. That's Youman's Guide Book of US Coins, and try to pick out designs that appeal to him, and see how, or if those designs fit into what that overall plans were.

Debbie Bradley: Isn't that at number one top bit of advice to collectors, is above all else, make sure you collect what you like, not just what might go up in value?

Tom Pilitowski: I think so, yes. And I think that's why education is so very important in this field. Even if starting out with a small guidebook like the Redbook, I think it's vitally important to do that before purchasing any coins.

Debbie Bradley: So, there are still gold and silver coins out there that we can afford, given how the metals is going through the roof right now?

Tom Pilitowski: Oh, I think so. Even there on a smaller end, you have got everything ranging from two and a half dollar Indian gold coins room a classic sense, to more modern coins that the US Mint is producing, like US Eagles that are a tenth of an ounce of gold. Or a quarter of an ounce of gold. I think there's something for everyone in that area.

Debbie Bradley: When you're advising someone who's new to the hobby, it sounds like the first tip would be to have a little bit of education?

Tom Pilitowski: I think take your time, a little education. Buy a couple of books, they're probably the best investment you could make initially. Talk to a few dealers. Attend a coin show or two. Try to gain access to as much information as you can. Eventually you'll see something that really appeals to you, and then start on pursue this hobby from that standpoint. If you, for example, like Morgan Dollars, but feel somewhat overwhelmed by the series, perhaps go into a small part of Morgan dollars. Silver dollars that were minted in Carson City, for example, have always been very popular, having a cartwheel from the wild west, et cetera.

Debbie Bradley: That sound like good advice. What about you? If the sky was the limit, and you could buy one coin, someone else is going to pay for it, what would you buy?

Tom Pilitowski: Well, you know there was an action many, many years ago, it was held by Stacks in New York, and there was a Higley Copper. It was an old colonial coin, a fellow by the name of Dr. Samuel Higley from Granby Connecticut, happen to have a copper mine on his property, and out of that copper mine he minted his own coins, one of which was a variety that depicted a pic ax. That particular coin was at auction, I believe it was a Stacks auction many, many decades ago, and it had a hole in it. The way Stacks described it in their catalog, was that because the pic ax so closely resembled that of a tomahawk, the hole might have put on that coin by an Indian who wore it. I never did get that coin, I missed it. I most have been sleeping or something. To the best of my knowledge, it's never come up for auction again, but if it ever does, you can bet I'll be an aggressive bidder for that coin.

Debbie Bradley: How much would it cost?

Tom Pilitowski: Well, see, that's just it. I didn't sell for a lot back then, maybe $4.000 or $5,000, but I reckon it will sell for multiples of that nowadays.

Debbie Bradley: But, it's something that you like, so that would be the one to take.

Tom Pilitowski: I think if I were to choose a second favorite coin, it would probably be in the realm of gold. I've always liked the 1907 Thank God in High Relief, and I think that probably I would choose one of those in the higher states of preservation, perhaps MS66 or MS67, and I think that between those two coins, we'll have found my favorites.

Debbie Bradley: Good choices. Well, you know what they say, behind every successful person there's someone in the shadows. Tell us about someone whose had a significant impact on your professional success.

Tom Pilitowski: Well, there's many, but perhaps my wife is at the top of the list with that. My wife, of course, is not only my partner in life, but also in my business as well. She's the IT department, the bookkeeping department, the billing department, and she keeps me in line, quite often.
If I were to go further back in time, I would say probably, whose still my mentor now, there's a fellow in New York, I can give you his initials, RK. He has been a mentor of mine for many, many years, and unfortunately I can't give you his name, I don't think it's appropriate at this time. I think those in the business will know who I'm talking about, and he's become very close with me, and a confident, a friend, and a mentor in this business.

Debbie Bradley: He'll know who he is.

Tom Pilitowski: Oh yeah.

Debbie Bradley: What would you say is the best business decision you have ever made?

Tom Pilitowski: Probably the best business decision I made long ago, I thought of myself as a pretty good numismatist, and a good salesman, but I was never able to quite click with the business part of the coin industry, and I interviewed with Paul Mitchell at Heritage in Dallas. I flew to Dallas, and I met with Paul, and I met with Steve Ivy, and ultimately, they gave me a job.
In fact, I was top retail guy in their company, for the most part, while I was there, and I learned a lot from those guys. There's a reason why they're the biggest in the business and I'm eternally grateful for the foundation that they gave me, during my employ for them.

Debbie Bradley: That's a nice compliment.

Tom Pilitowski: Thank you.

Debbie Bradley: Okay, one last thing.

Tom Pilitowski: Okay.

Debbie Bradley: Tell us something most people don't know about you.

Tom Pilitowski: Oh, boy. You know, a lot of people think that I'm just a coin dealer. I don't think that they realize how much of a coin collector that I am, whether it's Hard Time Tokens. There's one that's got a picture of President Jackson popping out of a treasure chest with a sword in one hand and a bag of money in the other, and it's labeled, "I take the responsibility," to gem-proof $20 gold pieces, and everything in between.
I am the consummate coin collector and it's very hard sometimes to sell these things, I wish I could keep them, but it's not possible. But I do as a dealer get at least the chance to be exposed to so many different types of coins, and again ranging from 90% silver coins to some of the finest known pieces. 1859, Old Double Eagles, that weren't even in the book. A so on and so forth. It's really a dream come true to be a collector and be in this business at the same time.

Debbie Bradley: You obviously enjoy your work.

Tom Pilitowski: Oh, absolutely. It's the best.

Debbie Bradley: Well, Tom, thank you so much for sharing with us today, and hopefully we'll be talking to you some other time about maybe some other things in the future.