There was an offer from Littleton Coin Company in one of the advertising inserts in a recent Sunday paper for a Walking Liberty half dollar for $6.95 as an introduction to the firm’s approval service. This coin, designed by Adolf A. Weinman, was minted from 1916 to 1947 and is considered by many collectors to be one of the most beautiful coins ever to come from America’s mints.

The picture in the ad shows a coin minted in Philadelphia in 1944 that had obviously served its purpose as legal tender. It is worn and has seen the insides of many pockets, purses and tills. A coin collector would probably grade it Fine based on the criteria given in Yeoman’s Red Book, a standard for the hobby.

Despite the connotation, Fine is not a very high numismatic grade. Nevertheless, the price is more than reasonable. I found a similar coin offered online for $8.99.

I mention the coin because when I was a young boy growing up on Library Street in the 1950s, my allowance was 50 cents, which was awarded after a few chores such as burning the weekly trash in a backyard oil drum. It was sometimes given to me in the form of a Walking Liberty half dollar, or the more recent Franklin half dollar.

My decision was how to spend the money and whether to save any. After all, the Saturday matinee at the Strand cost 35 cents.

When I walked down the hill toward downtown Mystic, the first store I came to was Wilcox Hardware, and I sometimes spent a nickel there for a tube of BBs for my Daisy air rifle. The gun was a gift on my seventh birthday, and I became a pretty good shot. I certainly put a lot of dents in empty tin cans. And I never put anybody’s eye out!

My next stop was probably going to be at Kretzer’s where I could get an ice cream cone for a dime, the same price as a comic book. My comics of choice were Superman or Batman. I also enjoyed Archies.

My sister, 10 years my senior, would never allow herself to be seen buying comics. She sent me to get her favorite Little Lulu magazines. I wish I still had those comic books! They would have been a better investment than putting my 50 cents in the bank at 3% interest.

My father also stopped at Kretzer’s every Sunday morning to get copies of the New York Daily News and the Herald Tribune. The New London Evening Day did not publish on Sundays.

Another purchase at Kretzer’s might have been baseball cards. The cards came in packages of five with a slab of gum. I don’t know anyone who ever tried the gum more than once. It was vile.

Many of us brought our cards with us to school at Mystic Academy where they were traded and flipped. This game involved flipping a card onto the ground and noting whether it was heads up or down. Then a second boy would do the same. If he matched the first card, he won and took both cards. If not, he lost his card. Of course, no one would ever think of doing this with a Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams card! Real junk cards were attached to bicycle spokes with clothespins to make one’s Schwinn sound like a Harley.

While penny candy was available in a few stores, many of us bought our supplies at what we called Little Mooney’s, a small shop on Water Street, near what is now Sift.

In the block between Gravel Street and the bridge was The Friendly Shop, a small gift store that was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Perrin, who also owned the apartment house on Elm Street, now called the Spicer Mansion. I used to go in the Friendly Shop and look through the packets of foreign stamps on sale, hoping to add some to my growing stamp collection.

For United States stamps I crossed the bridge and went to the post office. I liked to collect plate blocks. These are the four stamps in the corner of the sheet with the printing plate number in the selvage. Some window clerks would tear these off and save them for collectors.

When the postage rate was 3 cents, a plate block wasn’t going to break the budget.

Some folks bought entire sheets of 50 assuming that they were going to be worth a lot of money someday. That was a poor investment. Today dealers will purchase them for about 30% of face value.

Walking home, one stop might have been at the Five & Ten Cent store on West Main near the bridge to buy a bag of marbles. In nice weather, almost all the boys and some of the girls at Mystic Academy played marbles during recess.

One final stop before trudging back up the hill would be at Mystic Sporting Goods to look at baseball gloves and archery equipment. My friend Jimmy Edmonstone and I both liked to target shoot. Jimmy was a good shot; so good, in fact, that when I had an arrow in the bull’s eye, he not only also hit the center of the target, he split my arrow! That was 35 cents out of my allowance.

Robert F. Welt of Mystic is a retired Groton Public Schools teacher.