James McClendon is the Owner of Baysavers, Sacramento Coin Center in Fair Oaks.  He was born in January of 1947 in Bellflower, CA.  As a child, he made his income working for the Sacramento Bee paper route.  In his spare time, James would go from Bank to Bank and to Laundry and Car Washes to sort through their change.  He would then turn around and sell them to “John the Barber.” Taking the profit, he built his own coin collection for which he later used the proceeds to purchase his 1953 Chevy Bellaire and also to go towards the down payment of his first home at age eighteen. 

 

A year after purchasing his first home, James purchased an Arco Station.  For the next eighteen years, James worked at the Arco Station, worked as a truck driver, worked for Grand Auto, owned a towing service, got his notary license, bought and sold real estate and raised his son, James Jr., all while maintaining his collection.  When his son turned eighteen years old and went into the military, James used his bedroom to store all the coins he had purchased throughout his life.  It didn’t take very long to fill his son’s bedroom with the coin collection.  It was at this point that James realized he had such a large collection, that he felt he wasn’t truly able to enjoy the coins.  With this realization, James decided to take his coins to a local flea market (Denio’s Flea Market and Auction) where he opened up a booth and began buying and selling coins on the weekends for 14 years. 

 

He made such good money buying and selling at Denio’s and became so busy, that he decided to go back to college to enhance his computer skills.  Shortly after, he began working eighteen hour days selling his coins on the internet.  In 2001, James was able to purchase his own coin shop where he is currently still located in Fair Oaks, CA.  He has been the owner of Baysavers, Sacramento Coin Center for around ten years now and is still going strong