I started collecting coins when I was 9 years old in the summer of 1986. While staying at my grandmother's house, I found a Wheat Cent in some pocket change and asked her about it. She smiled, disappeared into another room, and came back carrying a stack of old Whitman coin folders. We spent the next few days going through them together, filling in gaps, checking dates, and discussing the coins' history. That was the moment the hobby took hold.
The Indian Head Cent quickly became my favorite. Even today, I still think it's one of the most beautifully designed coins ever produced.
Over the decades that followed, collecting became a constant part of my life. I bought, sold, traded, made mistakes, learned from them, and gradually built the kind of experience that only comes from years in the hobby and the marketplace. I've been active on eBay since 2003 and have spent time in not only coins but also sports cards, comics, trading card games, rare books, and other collectible markets. That broader experience taught me something important: every collectible market runs on knowledge, timing, condition, and psychology. Coins are no different.
The Strike Report was created to help collectors better understand the modern coin market — especially the information most people overlook. Population shifts, auction trends, grading patterns, undervalued certified coins, and market behavior all tell a story if you know where to look.
Outside of coins, I run Ironkeep Tavern Music on YouTube — ambient fantasy music built for DnD and MTG players. My eBay store, collector_city, has been active since 2003 and is where most of my personal coin buying and selling happens. Different projects, same person — a collector and creator who builds things around hobbies he genuinely loves.
My professional background includes nearly three decades of military and public service, experiences that have sharpened the attention to detail, research habits, and investigative mindset I now bring to numismatics. But at the core of all of this, I'm simply a lifelong collector who still enjoys the hunt as much as I did in 1986.
Today, in retirement, I'm building The Strike Report as a place for collectors who want clear information, honest analysis, and a deeper understanding of the hobby.