Sal Falcone

Sal and Barbara Falcone are the proprietors of Falcone's Coins and Jewelry located in Willow Glen, a suburb of San Jose, California. Sal's shop is much more than just a coin and jewelry store, though. Within its walls you are liable to find a Sestertius of Vespasian in high grade, a French coin from the Franco - Prussian war defaced by a political dissenter's carving of a German helmet on the bust of Napoleon III, an autographed photo of Gene Autry, and a nice selection of Ancient, Medieval, Chinese, Italian, and U. S. coins. His Address is:

Falcone's Jewelry and Coins
1230 Lincoln Ave.
San Jose, CA 95125
Phone: (408) 292-2221

I like to say that I have history for sale. I think I will put up a sign outside the shop that says "History For Sale." In here you can buy a piece of history that was a part of events and people's lives long ago.
Sal is highly knowledgeable about events in Italian history and the history of the rest of Europe, especially as it concerns Italy and Sicily. His family comes from Sicily, and he heads up a group of people who travel each year to Sicily to visit family and enjoy the warm Mediterranean sun while partaking of the local food and learning a little history in the process. Sal is an authority onmost knowledgeable about his specialty, which is the coinage of Italy and the Papal States.

The author first met Sal in a rather unusual way (If you personally know the author, you may not think this event to be very unusual, especially for him.) Sal was doing a militaria show at Neperdak Hall isn Santa Clara, California. The author, more likely than not, will have a few flips containing ancient coins in his pocket, just to keep him from becoming lonesome while away from home. Sal had a nice display of military decorations, medals, tokens, postcards, and other paper goods dating from about the Civil War to the mid Ninteteen Fifties. "Why don't you try selling some REALLY unusual militaria, like an ancient coin depicting a couple of Roman soldiers holding weapons and wearing armor?" He proceeded to pull a couple of Two Soldiers, Two Standards types in flips from the time of Constantine and his sons out of his pocket. "These are pretty nice, and not all that expensive wholesale. People ought to really go for them." The author was going to show this old guy a thing or two.

"Oh, I have a lot of that kind of thing back at the shop. I just didn't gring it along today because this is a militaria show."

"Is that right?" replied the author, somewhat skeptical. This guy looked like a regular dealer at shows and flea markets. Sal just didn't look like your everyday ancient coin dealer. "Where is your shop. I'd like to come by sometime this week."

Sal introduced himself and gave me the address of his old shop on Bascom Avenue. "We're moving, but I think I can still show you a few ancients."

Still thinking that Sal just wanted to get the author into his shop in the hopes of selling him something (You see, the author is usually a sucker for anything with an interesting historical connection that is reasonably inexpensive, he just has that look about him), he walked into Sal's shop the very next Wednesday. Sure enough, Sal had two nice Two Soldiers, Two Standards types in his trays.

"How much?" asked the author, halfway expecting them to be over priced. "Oh, how about twenty - five bucks for the pair." They were in nice condition and that was a pretty decent price. "OK", the author replied, and they spent the rest of the afternoon in conversation. It turned out that Sal had taught languages to high school students before retiring to open a coin shop. As the author had roots in the classroom as well, the two got along just fine.

By the way, the author still buys just about every Two Soldiers, Two Standards type that comes into Sal's shop.