The family owned and operated Hallenbeck Coin Gallery in Colorado Springs estimates it has bought and sold millions of collectible U.S. and foreign coins since it opened its doors just over four decades ago.

But the business got its start by way of a single coin — an Indian Head penny.

That’s the coin that company founder Ken Hallenbeck, then 11 years old, discovered on the floor of a malt shop in 1942 while living in Santa Clara, Calif. It wasn’t necessarily rare or valuable, but the coin launched Hallenbeck on a lifetime love of collecting.

He later acquired a 1901 Liberty Head nickel — worth up to $100 today — and continued to add to his collection over the years, eventually starting a coin collecting club in Ann Arbor, Mich., after his family moved there in 1949. As a teen, he bought a 1909 S-VDB penny — the first to feature Abraham Lincoln on its face. It cost $7.50 — a lot for a teen working part time.

“I just had a passion for coin collecting and money things,” said Hallenbeck, now 92.

“It wasn’t just a hobby; I must just have a collecting gene. I have collected lots of things — chopsticks, credit cards, casino poker chips, stamps and odd and primitive forms of money. I’m just a collector. I never dreamed that it would lead to a lifetime career.”

Ken Hallenbeck launched Hallenbeck Coin Gallery in 1983 along Nevada Avenue on the north edge of downtown Colorado Springs, which grew into one of the nation’s best known buyers and sellers of collectible U.S. and foreign coins. It also buys and sells precious metals, in coins and bars, as well as jewelry and flatware made from precious metals.

The business became a family affair, too. After Ken started the gallery, his son, Tom, joined him the next year and eventually bought the business in 2001.

Ken’s wife, June, kept the books for the business for many years, while Tom’s wife, Tiem, joined her husband at the gallery a decade ago. Tom and Tiem’s daughter, Hannah, came on board with her parents in 2019, and son, Spencer, works at the store this summer while on break from college.

Ken and Tom were two of the store’s four employees for most of Hallenbeck Coin Gallery’s first 20 years, though it now has 15 employees and has expanded several times.

As avid coin collectors, Ken and Tom also have each taken turns as president and interim executive director of the American Numismatic Association, the Colorado Springs-based nonprofit that’s devoted to the study of coins, paper currency and other numismatics and whose 25,000 members include coin collectors and dealers. As longtime association members, Ken will be honored with a 75-year membership pin and Tom will receive his 50-year pin at the group’s August convention.

Ken’s route to founding Hallenbeck Coin Gallery was long and winding.

He served two years in the Army and graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in geography before he took a job with Lincoln National Life Insurance in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Ken spent more than 20 years in Lincoln National’s policy service department, managing 75 people before a restructuring left just four people. He retired from the company in 1977.

Soon after, the Numismatic Association recruited him to become curator for its money museum, also in Colorado Springs; Ken had served as a member of the organization’s board of directors. He helped organize the museum’s collection and sort through coins and money sitting in its vault.

After five years, he and nine other employees were laid off when the Numismatic Association downsized to cut expenses. He immediately decided to open his own coin shop.

“A lot of people who got laid off were crying, but I decided it was better to be the one laying people off than the one getting laid off, so I started the business three or four months after the layoff,” Ken said. “I walked the (downtown) streets looking for a location; I wanted to be as close to the (Numismatic Association) and museum as I could because I thought I could get business from being close to them.”

The Hallenbeck Coin Gallery originally was at 619 N. Nevada Ave., where Ken said he and June poured their life savings into starting the store, while her parents also helped the couple with a loan for the business.

The gallery struggled in its early years and didn’t make enough money to meet the Hallenbecks’ living expenses. After four or five years, however, it hit $1 million in sales.

“There were several times when we were close to being down to our last dollar,” Ken said. “I was afraid we would have to pack it in if business did not improve. My plan if the store didn’t work out was to be a handyman, but it never came to that.”

The Coin Gallery stayed at its first location for six years, but moved after Ken decided he wanted to avoid rent increases in the leased space. He instead bought the store’s current location, a 10,000-square-foot, two-story building at 711 N. Nevada.

By 2001, Ken was ready to sell the business and retire, and Tom expressed interest in acquiring it. Ken said he didn’t want to hire Tom at first and instead wanted him to experience working somewhere else.

Yet, when he did sell, Ken said Tom was the “natural” buyer.

“He knows more than I ever knew (about the coin business),” Ken said. “He developed the business and made the store much more presentable, and the store does a lot more business internationally, especially in Germany.

“I have always had good health, so I never thought about retirement. It has been a wonderful business and I have made many good friends. We have always operated with integrity and honesty — if you do things right, you have no worries.”

Tom and two brothers, Kevin and Scott, attended coin club meetings and shows with their father, and all became coin collectors. Tom wound up making a career in the coin industry, though it wasn’t his plan.

He graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with an economics degree in 1984 and received banking industry offers to become a teller.

“But I thought, ‘I didn’t go to college for four years to be a teller,’ and I could have gone to a (stock) brokerage house to make cold calls selling penny stocks, but I decided to start working for dad until I could find a real job,” Tom said.

“I was going to reapply to other companies later, but I just stuck around and 40 years later, I’m still here.”

When Tom bought the business, employees were still handwriting receipts and required police reports on coins they bought from the public.

He began hiring employees to modernize and digitize the business, including launching a website and eBay store and eventually establishing a presence on social media and YouTube. The store’s sales have grown significantly in the 23 years Tom has owned it, though he declined to disclose figures.

Tom also has improved the store’s security with nearly three dozen cameras, limiting the number of customers in the store and bought sophisticated equipment to examine coins. A major remodeling is planned this year to further improve security and update the store’s exterior.

“When dad sold me the business, he let me do what I wanted. He recognized he wasn’t computer-savvy and that the business needed to be modernized,” Tom said.

“The most important thing I learned from my father was integrity — how to treat people fairly by making an honest offer on their coins and precious metals so the store can make a little bit on every transaction. I learned from him how to authenticate and grade coins and how to buy and sell coins.”

Ken Hallenbeck worked part time at the store after he sold it to Tom. He gradually reduced his days and hours until he stopped working early during the COVID-19 pandemic, though he still keeps an office in the building.

“I always got along well with my dad — we have similar personalities,” Tom said. “My brothers thought they couldn’t work with him. We had a few minor disagreements about the business, but we never had a major argument.

“I try not to bring home what went on at the shop,” Tom added. “We do not talk about coins (at home). If you walked into my house, you wouldn’t know that I owned a coin shop.”

Despite never intending to make a career in the coin industry, Tom said he enjoyed it more with each year and especially the flexibility offered by owning his own business.

The coin industry remains strong even as other collectibles have lost favor, Tom said. The company has had its best years during economic downturns, including the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic — since many people flock to the safety of precious metals and coins during those times.

Tom, 62, hopes to retire by the time he turns 70, so he’s recently begun business succession discussions with Hannah and other family members about the store’s future.

Whoever replaces her father will “have big shoes to fill,” Hannah said. “(Running the store) is a lot of responsibility. I love having my dad here. Dads can do things like help you fix the kitchen sink, but my dad knows everything about coins. You can bring him almost any coin and he knows the story behind it, the metal in it and the value of it.”

Hannah, 28, is a sales associate at the store but also supervises its world coin and paper money operations. While in high school and college, she worked in the store during spring, summer and winter breaks and was a helper at coin shows in which the store participated.

Whatever happens, she seems to be in no hurry to take over the store.

“It is still a little overwhelming to learn all there is to know (about the business),” Hannah said. “I still have much to learn. He (Tom) is an excellent boss who is understanding and compassionate and knows how to diffuse interpersonal conflict.”