Linda Falkenstein
Jim's Coins & Stamps
As Hilldale adds to its outdoor shopping street with shops like Sur La Table and Lucky Brand, I enjoy looking for the remnants of Hilldale’s past, like the rear exterior of Macy’s, where the brickwork of the original shopping center is still visible. But there’s no better place to find old Hilldale than the row of basement stores accessed via a staircase near the Metcalfe’s end.
What, you didn’t know Hilldale even had a basement? Oh yes. That’s where the barber shop lurks, and a hair salon and, most exciting, Jim’s Coins & Precious Metals.
Linda Falkenstein
Jim’s (which was Len’s Coins and Stamps from 1979 to 2003) has been located there since 1990. It’s a small, shoe-box-shaped room with glass cabinets housing mostly rare coins. The shop buys and sells coins, gold and silver, and jewelry. (Len Roosmalen, the store’s first owner, was a specialist in error coins — those manufactured incorrectly.) Jim’s does about three-fourths of its business in coins; stamps barely make a dent. But a small table devoted to stamps was what drew me to Jim’s.
When I was a kid, my dad started me in on stamp collecting. This was one of his hobbies, and I dutifully pasted my stamps into a big album. But at some point we both lost interest and he sold off his collection — which wasn’t worth much. He kept one album of uncanceled American stamps from the early 1960s. He gave that album to me awhile back, saying they were worth so little I might as well use them to mail bills. This was long enough ago that people still mailed bills.
Linda Falkenstein
I came across that album recently, with several empty spots where I had indeed used the stamps to send letters. Dad passed away this spring, and suddenly I needed to fill the blanks back in with the appropriate stamps. There at Jim’s, I found a box full of pages of uncanceled stamps from the early ’60s, beautiful designs full of mid-century optimism — sheets of 20 three- and four-cent stamps, for sale at face value.
At Jim’s, uncanceled (and usable) stamps are sold at face value; canceled stamps are five cents each. There are full pages of stamps from the 1960s and ’70s, folders of Christmas stamps from the last few decades. Ziploc bags full of a mixed lot of 1,000 stamps go for face value, too, though you get a 20% discount for buying in volume (this is the best deal).
Canceled stamps from around the world are filed in a small card catalog drawer and are for sale by the envelope-full (usually 50 or 100 stamps at two cents each). Uncanceled stamps from around the world are also on hand.
Jim’s will buy stamps, and they continue to sell them, but they don’t pursue it. As my dad observed, most stamps aren’t worth anything. So you can mail a birthday card with vintage stamps, use them to make jewelry or decoupage a bowl, or mat and frame a sheet of 20 for a striking piece of art. All good.
But filling in the blank slots in Dad’s old album with those missing, worthless stamps? Priceless.
Jim’s Coins & Precious Metals 702 N. Midvale Blvd., B-2, 608-233-2118, jimscoins.com, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat.
