By Joshua McMorrow-Hernandez
Jim Gately is a longtime collector of coins with several sets on the PCGS Set Registry built around Buffalo Nickels. Courtesy of Gerard Brown.
This stunning 1916 Doubled Die Obverse Buffalo Nickel is graded PCGS MS64 and is one of the crown jewels in Gately’s magnificent collection. Courtesy of PCGS TrueView. Jim Gately was attending St. James Elementary School in Southern California in the 1960s when his love for coins was first kindled. “Every Thursday for lunch, we had what was called ‘Hot Dog Day.’ This was a very special treat, as my school had no cafeteria or indoor eating area,” he recalled. “All the kids would bring spare change and buy hot dogs and chips. It was a great treat, and all the kids loved it! Well, my mom was the treasurer of the school, and she would bring all the coins home that night to deposit in the bank the next day. My dad was a coin nut, so we would sit at the dining room table that evening and go through these coins. I had no idea what to look for, as I was only about nine or 10 years old, but to handle and swap out coins that were decades old 26
JIM GATELY
COLLECTOR SPOTLIGHT
was very exciting and fun.” A young Jim sought many of the classic U.S. coins from the earlier decades of the 20th century, though he gravitated toward Buffalo Nickels. He rode his bike to several coin shops in Southern California over the next few years, purchasing many of the Full Horns Buffalo Nickels he needed to round out his collection. “Then one day, it happened. A coin shop owner brought me behind the counter and said, ‘You have to see this nickel.’ So, I took a look at it and almost dropped to the floor. It was an uncirculated Buffalo Nickel, and I had never seen anything so beautiful!” He added, “As a kid new to the hobby, I had no idea there were uncirculated Buffalos still around, and I still remember that moment almost 60 years later!” He collected into his teen years and ended up focusing on other aspects of life as he got into high school years. Then about 20 years ago, his passion for Buffalo Nickels stirred once again. “This is when I learned about third-party grading, ‘slabs,’ PCGS, and Registry Sets. It was another ‘WOW’ moment, and I got back into my pursuit of Buffalos.” He became a PCGS Set Registry member around 2006, inspired by the Buffalo Nickel sets of Tom McCarroll and Gerald Forsythe, which he thought were “two sets that I realistically felt were unbeatable.” And yet, he beat them. “The PCGS Set Registry has 13 different sets of Buffalo Nickels – eight major sets and five specialty sets. My Buffalo Nickels are #1 in every set category.”
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