ABC Art & Coin Owner Buys, Sells History

Gino Sanfilippo knows coins.

The owner of started collecting when he was just six years old, and he hasn’t looked back since. He’s owned three of the first series of coins minted by the United States—the one he’s held onto is worth about $8,000, he said—and has helped countless customers make extra cash off of their treasures.

“I like historical things,” he said.

Sanfilippo and his wife, Beverly, bought ABC Art and Coin from the original owner in the late ’80s. His wife, who passed away this winter, was interested in collectibles, many of which still line the store’s walls.

The shop is filled with everything from Precious Moments figurines to old political buttons emblazoned with famous slogans like “I Like Ike.”

“I’ll buy anything from marbles to guns,” Sanfilippo said.

He likes to think about the past behind an object, wondering who had held a coin from the 1700s or whether a Civil War gun had been shot.

“You wish that some of these things could talk,” he said.

But Sanfilippo’s real expertise is coins and jewelry—he estimated that at least 90 percent of his business comes from that. On a recent morning, a few customers stopped by bearing coins and asking for his opinion.

Sanfilippo said he gets plenty of first-time customers—people who tell him they’ve lived in the area their whole lives without stopping by until they have something to sell.

But he also gets repeat customers, people who just stop by to say hello. When his wife died, he was surprised at the number of people who called and sent their condolences. The store has led to more than just business partners.

“It goes beyond that,” he said.