Counting Your Change...

[buelligan]

Ok here is the whole story: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-04/guest-post-one-very-strange-use-silver-coins

Apparently the buyer took $1000 face value worth of silver quarters to a car dealer, they both went to a coin shop where the buyer handed the dealer the bag of coins for the car. The dealer then handed the bag over to the coin shop and they handed the dealer a check for $25,000 then the dealer signed over the title of the car as being sold for $1500 (probably title and dealer fee's added)

 

[buelligan]

Oh and back to the original counting change theme. A co-worker of mine has a Friend in Pennsylvania that saved his change his whole life, every day when he came home he would throw all of his loose change in a old water jug. This guy ended up buying his house and several acres of land outright with his change. Oh and to top it off he is right in the middle of that huge shale oil deposit and has now signed a contract to make tens of thousands of dollars per month for access to the oil rights on his property. The money is great but my co-worker is a little conflicted when he see's the change of the landscape in the area, well that and if you have land it's great but if you dont have a sizable piece of land this whole oil thing is not going to affect you in a positive way.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Ok here is the whole story: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-04/guest-post-one-very-strange-use-silver-coins

Apparently the buyer took $1000 face value worth of silver quarters to a car dealer, they both went to a coin shop where the buyer handed the dealer the bag of coins for the car. The dealer then handed the bag over to the coin shop and they handed the dealer a check for $25,000 then the dealer signed over the title of the car as being sold for $1500 (probably title and dealer fee's added)

OK, he paid $25,000 for the car and then lied to the DMV about how much he paid for it. I'm sure it happens. This doesn't even go into what he should pay upon selling the coins. But since he was a tax protester, I seriously doubt he's going to lose any sleep over it. But it's not legit. He didn't find a loophole, he simply lied on his taxes.

 

[buelligan]

I wouldn't call it a loophole either but I'm not a big fan of that term anyways since to me there are no loopholes just rules, the rules are the same for all of us regardless of financial status. Now whether you have the money to take advantage of those rules is a different story and whether you can afford to pay a tax person to find those rules and use them to your advantage is another story. But the rules are the rules and they apply the same to you as they do to me which is the same as they apply to Trump, Gates, and Buffet, both Jimmy and Warren. lol
I don't think I would call it a lie or not it could just as easily have been some person that had a bunch of old coins laying around that took those coins to a dealer and the dealer took advantage of them by not telling them the true value of the coins. He gave the dealer 4,000 quarters that equals $1,000. Now the value those quarters hold in silver is a whole other subject but to uncle Sam and the treasury department it's $1,000

 

[HudsonHawk]

I don't think I would call it a lie or not it could just as easily have been some person that had a bunch of old coins laying around that took those coins to a dealer and the dealer took advantage of them by not telling them the true value of the coins. He gave the dealer 4,000 quarters that equals $1,000. Now the value those quarters hold in silver is a whole other subject but to uncle Sam and the treasury department it's $1,000

No, the value to Uncle Sam and the treasury department is $25,000. This guy simply lied about what he gave the seller. And since the seller was complicit, it's a conspiracy to commit tax evasion.

 

[Nobert]

What would really make this story delicious is if it turned out the whole thing happened in New Hampshire.

 

[buelligan]

No, the value to Uncle Sam and the treasury department is $25,000. This guy simply lied about what he gave the seller. And since the seller was complicit, it's a conspiracy to commit tax evasion.

How so, and I'm not trying to be simple or contrary I just don't really understand how Uncle Sam and the treasury department could look at 4,000 quarters and tell you that they are worth more than what the markings that THEY put on them say they are worth. The coin store is less concerned with the face value and more concerned with the silver value and THEY are the ones that placed the value at $25,000 but I would think that as long as the quarters are in serviceable condition that Uncle Sam would be obligated to value them at 25 cents a piece wouldn't they be? If they are not obligated to do so then they probably aren't obligated to value them at 25 cents if their value is less than that either and that to me would mean that the U.S. dollar is probably far less stable than one would hope. Again this is a serious question that I am curious about the answer to. Once someone melts the coins down it WILL be a $25,000 ingot of silver and the whole issue of face value will be erased. But then your probably in trouble for defacing government property or something along those lines. lol

 

[HudsonHawk]

How so, and I'm not trying to be simple or contrary I just don't really understand how Uncle Sam and the treasury department could look at 4,000 quarters and tell you that they are worth more than what the markings that THEY put on them say they are worth.

Uncle Sam is not saying they're worth more than face value, other collectors are. The IRS is concerned with the market value. You seem to be stuck on this idea that the government is somehow legally forbidden to recognize the collectible value of coins. That's simply not true.

The coin store is less concerned with the face value and more concerned with the silver value and THEY are the ones that placed the value at $25,000 but I would think that as long as the quarters are in serviceable condition that Uncle Sam would be obligated to value them at 25 cents a piece wouldn't they be? If they are not obligated to do so then they probably aren't obligated to value them at 25 cents if their value is less than that either and that to me would mean that the U.S. dollar is probably far less stable than one would hope. Again this is a serious question that I am curious about the answer to. Once someone melts the coins down it WILL be a $25,000 ingot of silver and the whole issue of face value will be erased. But then your probably in trouble for defacing government property or something along those lines. lol

Yes, the government backs the coins at face value, but the issue for the IRS is not the face value of the coins themselves, it's the other currency that changed hands. You can't get around the fact that $25,000 changed possession in exchange for a capital asset.

 

[Tomasso]

The IRS would value those quarters at the market rate of silver rather than the coin's denomination.

 

[buelligan]

Ok let me ask you this say I go to a dealership and find a car that I like for $25,000 but I don't have that kind of money. So I work out a deal, a barter if you will with the dealership that I will do $10,000 worth of car detailing and repair for them to bring the price that I am paying for the car down to $15,000 which I can do. The car (asset) is still worth $25,000 but I am only paying $15,000 cash for it the other 10k is settled between the dealership and I over some labor. How does the government feel about that situation? And how would you get taxed on that?

 

[HudsonHawk]

Ok let me ask you this say I go to a dealership and find a car that I like for $25,000 but I don't have that kind of money. So I work out a deal, a barter if you will with the dealership that I will do $10,000 worth of car detailing and repair for them to bring the price that I am paying for the car down to $15,000 which I can do. The car (asset) is still worth $25,000 but I am only paying $15,000 cash for it the other 10k is settled between the dealership and I over some labor. How does the government feel about that situation? And how would you get taxed on that?

You've got a job with the dealership and pay income tax on that $10,000 you're earning. You use it, along with your existing $15,000 to purchase a $25,000 car.

 

[skydog757]

The oddest coin I ever saw given as change was an quarter that my friend had received - it was apparently some sort of magician's coin. It looked perfectly ordinary except that it had been cut up into 5 or so sections that were held together with clear rubber bands that ran through them. The head was a totally independent piece but you couldn't see any of the seams. You could squeeze the coin and it would collapse down to almost nothing. He didn't realize what he had until he felt it "give" in his hand. I'm sure a prop like that ran far more than 25 cents; someone must have accidentally used it as payment.

 

[F. J.]

I found silver!!

[...]
It's the first silver I've gotten this year [...] They're still out there, but you'll only find them if you're paying attention.

To-day I happened to look down and found a Roosevelt dime on the floor—from 1947.
Silver coin (made from coin silver* ) is most certainly still out there.


*Coin silver is comprised of 90% silver and 10% copper.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Found in the bottom of my pocketbook this morning, a dateless Buffalo nickel. No idea how long I've been carrying it around, but it must've showed up in change fairly recently. Rubbed almost slick, but still discernable.

 

[Tomasso]

Got a 1889 indian head penny in my change from CVS last month. I had the munchies so I popped in to grab a bag of chips. I used the self checkout kiosk to pay for the $1.99 chips and the machine spit out the indian head. It looks to be in Good condition, thus having a value of $2. So the chips were free!

 

[tonyb]

I figure that whenever I get an old coin (or folding money) someone recently raided the piggy bank or coin collection or whatever, seeing how even metal coins won't last a half century and more in constant circulation, leastwise not in anything that might be called a good condition. Just a week or so ago I got a silver certificate bill in change for a 20. It ain't worth a heckuva lot more than face value, but still ...

 

[LizzieMaine]

I figure that whenever I get an old coin (or folding money) someone recently raided the piggy bank or coin collection or whatever, seeing how even metal coins won't last a half century and more in constant circulation, leastwise not in anything that might be called a good condition. Just a week or so ago I got a silver certificate bill in change for a 20. It ain't worth a heckuva lot more than face value, but still ...

I cracked open a roll of quarters at work a couple years ago and found a big chunk of that roll was pre-1965 silver. Evidently somebody's hoard got cashed in at the bank by mistake, or one of our local druggies stole grandpa's coin jar.

Forty or fifty years did seem to be about the practical ceiling on coin circulation during the Era. You could still find Seated Liberty coins in circulation in the twenties, although they weren't common, and had largely vanished by the mid-thirties. Barber coins, last minted in 1916, were very common in the twenties, common in the thirties, less common in the forties, and were disappearing by the end of the fifties. Buffalo nickels, last minted in 1938, were still common until they were overwhelmed by the huge nickel mintages of the mid-sixties, but you could still find them thru the seventies if you looked long enough.

My grandfather collected coins out of circulation in the forties, fifties, and sixties, and had a large accumulation of Barber dimes, quarters, and halves. Most of them were extremely worn, and some were worn almost completely slick with only the faintest trace of the design remaining.

 

[tonyb]

Brings to mind something that might better belong in the "Terms Which Have Disappeared" thread: the phrase "pretty as new money."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Modern coins seem to last longer than their equivalents in the Era -- when was the last time anyone saw a slick quarter or dime? These were common in the Era. The cupro-nickel clad coins might be ugly, but there are plenty of them in circulation from the mid-1960s with nowhere near the amount of wear a silver coin of equivalent age would have picked up. A silver coin with five or six years' worth of circulation would have the inscriptions already wearing down into the coin's rim.

 

[jamespowers]

Modern coins seem to last longer than their equivalents in the Era -- when was the last time anyone saw a slick quarter or dime? These were common in the Era. The cupro-nickel clad coins might be ugly, but there are plenty of them in circulation from the mid-1960s with nowhere near the amount of wear a silver coin of equivalent age would have picked up. A silver coin with five or six years' worth of circulation would have the inscriptions already wearing down into the coin's rim.

True but I will take all the silver coins you are willing to reject due to heavy wear.
On a more serious note, those stupid zinc pennies from the war years lasted forever---if they didn’t rust out first. I have seen tons that my grandparents threw aside over the years and they were never really worn down. Then again, they were zinc…..