EVERETT—Located on Evergreen Way, in the South Forest Park neighborhood of Everett, lies Odyssey Coins-2, a hidden gem collectible coin store that’s just as much a living museum as it is a storefront.
For 43 years and counting, Odyssey Coins-2 has offered rare, antique, coins, bullion, military artifacts and historic firearm accessories to Everett history buffs, coin collectors, and more. Its named Odyssey Coins-2 to differentiate it from the previous owner’s Odyssey Coins store in Montana.
Current owner Ross Angeledes – who is the store’s fourth owner – was a customer of Odyssey Coins for many years, growing up as an ardent coin collector. When the store’s previous owner, Rich, began to experience health problems Angeledes – who was just a few years away from retirement and wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his free time – offered to buy the store to keep it afloat in the year 2000.
Angeledes kept the staff, both knowing them well as a customer and being impressed with their encyclopedic knowledge of coins, history, and military surplus, while continuing to work as a QFC manager until he officially retired in 2003. At that time, he made it his “full time home,” he said.
“I have a real passion for history and collecting. It’s kind of like a dream come true to be able to see, for the first time, every new estate that comes in because that’s where the fun is in treasure hunting,” said Angeledes.
Angeledes’ fascination with coins was inspired by his late grandfather, Russell Pratt, during the mid, to late, 1960’s. He immediately “took a real shining to it,” he informed the Lynnwood Times, and made it his mission to learn as much as he could on the subject. This was, of course, before the internet so it involved reading virtually every book he could find and quickly becoming something of an expert.
Angeledes meticulous research on collectible coins even involved learning ancient languages – to decipher the coinage and monetary systems.
When Angeledes pursued a college degree in history, he found himself writing all his papers on his fixation; subjects such as the economics of the Roman Empire, how a particular Emperor arrived at a precious metal, and so on. According to Angeledes, his history professors at the time were fascinated because they had never seen papers like this before. This eventually led to a teaching position on the subject.
In the collecting community, according to Angeledes, it becomes “something of a game” to bring in a collectible and see if they can “stump” a numismatist (a broad term referring to someone who deals with collectible coins) in a shop, but so far Angeledes hasn’t been stumped yet, he said.
Most of Odyssey Coins-2’s inventory comes from estates. According to Angeledes whenever you go through an old estate there are typically always four things that are always found: coins and bullion, jewelry, military artifacts, and guns and ammo. Because of this, it is these four things that Odyssey Coins has built its business around.
“It’s amazing what you find. I’m not a jewelry store, per say, I basically sell the jewelry that we find at metal value; we treat it more like bullion,” said Angeles. “But that’s been popular for those who collect antique jewelry – because most of the stuff you find in estates is older. I get people in here that buy 30, 40, pieces of it because they can’t find it anywhere else and they’re always stunned to find it goes for its weight in silver or gold.”
Separate to obtaining its inventory through estates primarily, however, Odyssey Coins-2 does adopt a ‘buy and sell’ model. Occasionally they even offer their expertise to patrons who simply need to assess the value of a certain object.
Odyssey Coins-2’s staff is well known for their passion for history, collectibles, and being endlessly knowledgeable on the subjects. This passion seeps into their love, and care, for what they do.
For example, Odyssey Coins-2 recently came into possession of an estate from a Purple Heart. The staff member who handles the military surplus went above, and beyond, in tracking down all documentation he could on the person who had earned it (military accommodations, newspaper clippings, documents, story, and so on) to put it together as a set.
“When it comes to things like that, we’re very careful with who we sell to. Obviously, the family gets first dibs, but we make sure that it goes to someone who, not only will respect it, and be interested in the person who owned it, but be interested in its history,” said Angeles.
At Odyssey Coins-2’s you can expect to find old military uniforms, knives, swords, historic firearms, and even memorabilia that some consider to be slightly uncomfortable – such as items that belonged to the Soviets, Nazis, and Confederates.
To Angeledes, however, he has no qualms carrying objects like this because “we won,” he said.
“These are representative of our victory. They’re spoils of war that our men were encouraged by the armed forces to bring back,” said Angeledes. “When you look at it that way, it’s kind of an amazing feeling…I feel some people forget history and when you do that it only ends poorly. For people to see the things we’ve done before, as a country, and what we’ve managed to step up and do in times of great need is important and we serve as a place where people can be reminded of that.”
Though Odyssey Coins-2 is, at its core, a business – which, according to Angeledes is necessary in order to keep the lights on – Angeledes has no problem with people coming in just to admire, and appreciate, the historical items on display, much like a museum…in fact, he encourages it.
“Even if collectors aren’t able to buy these things, we let them handle them, take a picture of them, and enjoy them. What’s the point of locking these things away where people can’t see this piece of history?” said Angeledes.
Despite Angeledes collecting historic coins and artifacts for, going on, 60+ years, sometimes the items that pass through his shop still surprise him. For example, he obtained a coin from the ancient city of Tyre dating back to over 3,000 years ago – at a time when Tyre was known for its pristine minting and served as a leader of wealth in the ancient world. What’s more, this coin was a coin used for the 30 pieces of silver in the Bible – the payment Judas Iscariot received from the chief priests to betray Jesus.
“It’s just such a powerful piece of history,” said Angeledes. “It’s a feeling I can’t describe. It’s such a powerful feeling to hold something like that, that played such a powerful role in history.”
Odyssey Coins-2 is located at 5215 Evergreen Way in Everett, Washington. It’s open every day (except Sundays) from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, and 6 p.m. every other day of the week.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
