Counting Your Change...

[Tiki Tom]

I went to count the change in my till the other day & there was an Indian 5 rupee coin.

I’m a little annoyed. Someone slipped me a Hungarian 200 Forint coin instead of a 2 Euro coin. I only found out when I tried to spend it and the cashier caught it. So I was doubly embarrassed. (200F is only worth 0.64 Euros.)

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

1964D from last week.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

1976S
Even though it's a nickel clad and Bicentennial quarters aren't exactly rare, San Francisco mint marks aren't found in the wild very much around here. And I don't find very many Bicentennial quarters in this condition.

 

[Héctor Fernández]

One of the coolest coins ever minted, in my opinion of course.

1976 S
Even though it's a nickel clad and Bicentennial quarters aren't exactly rare, San Francisco mint marks aren't found in the wild very much around here. And I don't find very many Bicentennial quarters in this condition.

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[LizzieMaine]

Somebody broke that out of a set. Desperate times breed desperate measures.

 

[3fingers]

Somebody broke that out of a set. Desperate times breed desperate measures.

I have a few coins and bills I've received as change that I have wondered why they were in circulation. Either desperation or somebody getting into the stash in grandma's dresser drawer would be most likely. Either way, it always makes me feel a bit bad.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Somebody broke that out of a set. Desperate times breed desperate measures.

You may be right. I did get it in my change at a Dollar Tree store.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Arrived in the mail the other day!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Jordanian 5 Piastres about the size of a quarter.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Covid coin shortage in the US and the call for people to turn in their penny jars is producing some interesting circulation finds lately. It's been decades since wheat-back cents were common in circulation here, but in the last week I've gotten three -- all from various drive-thru restaurant windows: 1958-D, a 1944, and today a 1929 with the Lincoln bust worn almost slick. Nothing worth keeping, necessarily, but still an interesting suggestion that coin hoards going back into circulation during the present unpleasantness may cause coins to reappear that haven't been seen in a long time.

 

[belfastboy]

I’m a little annoyed. Someone slipped me a Hungarian 200 Forint coin instead of a 2 Euro coin. I only found out when I tried to spend it and the cashier caught it. So I was doubly embarrassed. (200F is only worth 0.64 Euros.)

See if you can find a vending machine to accept it!

 

[Turnip]

That will have to be pre 1918 then...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Took $85 worth of coins to the counting machine today and among the Canadian nickels and mutilated zinc pennies, it spit back a 1961-D silver dime. Given the light wear, it hasn't been circulating for sixty years, so someone else probably cleaned out their own coin hoard before it got to me. First silver I've gotten in a while.

 

[Harp]

Nothing worth keeping, necessarily, but still an interesting suggestion that coin hoards going back into circulation during the present unpleasantness may cause coins to reappear that haven't been seen in a long time.

Long ago, one of my several law school gigs was working the overnite shift at a local convenience store.
The Chicago Trinune delivery guy revealed the Mercury winged dimes he was harvesting from the paper
box two blocks down, Buffalo nickels, wheat pennies. He asked my opinion over the haul and I suggested
that a little old lady in the neighborhood probably lost her husband, and, widowed raided his coin collection.
Just a shot in the dark. Turned out to be true.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Desperate for groceries, I cashed in 32-ounce-paper-Coke-cup full of pennies, nickels, and dimes this week at the coin counting machine, and among the $60.53 worth thus deposited, I found a 1956-D silver dime and a 1936-S Buffalo nickel. The latter has clearly not been circulating for 85 years, given that the date is still very clear and readable, but I have no idea where I picked it up. First Buffalo I've picked out of circulation in about twenty years, and that one was slick (an overnight soak in a glass of vinegar revealed it to be a 1918.) So this was a nifty find. The dime wasn't quite slick, but it was getting there. It has clearly been bouncing around for a while.

 

[Harp]

A Buffalo nickel chanced to find my pocket recently. Once in a while, a buffalo or winged Mercury dime
finds its way to me and I look at the nickel's bison legs just to be sure, and drop inside the large Mason glass kitchen kept.
Occasionally I'll pour all coins into a plastic Maxwell House jug and truck over to my bank two blocks down.
I like the coin counter, with its paper tally receipt. Just folding money but the coins do add up over a year.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Turned up in the till tonight: a 1944-P war nickel. Those used to be fairly common, but it's the first I've come across in several years. Heavily worn, and greasy-green with that manganese tarnish they all get, but still an interesting find.

 

[Harp]

A quick Fed sheet scan shows Third Quarter M2 velocity an abysmal 1.15. Tanked national economy.

And when considered against inflation and Fed incompetence better count your change.

 

[Juanito]

I got ambitious today and took a very large can of loose change to the CoinStar machine at the local supermarket. What's entertaining about these machines is that they spit out anything that's at all out of the ordinary, and you can find some pretty unusual old, worn, or foreign coins in the reject chute. After all was said and done today, I had left over --

One Mexican 5-centavos piece

One 1966 British shilling

One 1943 steel cent

One dateless Buffalo nickel

One MBTA subway token

Two silver Roosevelt dimes, one 1948 and one 1961.

And about three dollars' worth of Canadian coins, which regularly pass here at face value.

The real surprises here were the Mexican coin -- I've never seen one turn up this far from Mexico -- and the shilling, which I guess someone must've found in the bottom of a drawer or something and passed off as a Canadian quarter. I've found a lot of Carribean coins in change, and even a French coin once, but these were both first-time finds.

What's the oddest thing you've ever found in *your* change?

A Balboa dime.