“Basically, what that taught me was that I had to have a book,” said Fritz, who along with the other students in class was tasked to give an oral presentation about the coin later in the year. “I found out right there and then that everything I wanted to know was in a book. There weren’t any coin stores where I lived.”
With her interest fully engaged, Fritz began collecting Lincoln pennies on her own. After graduating from Jacksboro High School in 1967, Fritz decided to opt out of a job at the local shirt factory, or the 10-Cent Store and instead bought a bus ticket to Dayton where her mother was working.
“I met my husband, Ed, got a job and took business classes at Miami Jacobs College, but it felt so good to work and make money and be able to send part of it back home that I decided to work full-time,” said Fritz, who eventually got a job working for Ohio Bell where she first worked as an operator and then a toll investigator, while Ed Fritz completed his education at Florida Technical College in Daytona Beach.
Meanwhile, she learned her husband had a dime collection. Clearly a match made in heaven, the couple went on to have a daughter, Danielle Fritz Brewster, two granddaughters and two great-grandchildren.
After the nuptials, their interest in coins only escalated from a hobby, to a part-time job, to a store of their own in Centerville, now staffed by family members and 16 employees.
They started by going to coin shows and trading from magazines and using a teletype machine in 1972, but by 1979 with the price of gold rising the licensed traders decided that they could make a living fulltime in the field they both felt passionate about. The Internet brought more changes to the field and resulted in Fritz and her husband opening a storefront, Centerville Coin & Jewelry Connection and expanding their inventory to include jewelry, Roots Candles and American-made gift items with their beloved coins always present.
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