Counting Your Change...

[ThesFlishThngs]

Not much here. I don't use a commercial machine, but just take the coin collection to our bank to be sorted. If anything odd comes out, I suppose the employees gives it back, but nothing comes to mind.
I've found Canadian pennies in my coin purse now and then, and once I got a Euro 1 cent in my change at a coffee house. I think it was a French version, but not sure.
Being not so far from Mexico, one would think Mexican currency would turn up more often, but I can't remember an instance of discovering anything from south of the border in my wallet.
I try to look through my pennies, saving the ones from 1982 and earlier, as I believe the composition was changed in '82, to the copper-clad zinc, as copper was becoming more valuable.

 

[Dexter'sDame]

Not wanting to give up a percentage, I count and roll my own, too.

A few things I've found: a Herbert Hoover campaign button about the size of a quarter, a 1939 World's Fair coin, Mexican coins, Canadian coins, subway tokens from three different cities, and a Missouri Sales Tax token.

 

[WideBrimm]

Speaking of counting change, something which everyone did back in the golden era, before the advent of computerized cash registers, how many can still do it? One buys an item for say 50 cents and gives the clerk a five dollar bill. Change is counted back something like "that is 50 cents, 75 cents, one dollar, two, three, four and five is five dollars" as it is being handed back to the customer. Seems simple. But a few years ago I was in line to pay the cashier, a young lady, at a restaurant when suddenly the power went out. This cashier was absolutely at a loss for making change. Customers had to help her out as she only knew how to do it via the computerized receipt. What else don't they teach in schools these days?

 

[Ethan Bentley]

I found a dime that someone had palmed off as a 5p funny thing is it's worth more than 5p at the moment, just.

The coin star is a great little device. In some of the big banks in London they have the same device but there is no commission/fee and goes straight into your bank account.

 

[Shangas]

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

A coin with Dutch words on it, which came from the Dutch East Indies. Dated sometime in the 1930s.

Change is counted back something like "that is 50 cents, 75 cents, one dollar, two, three, four and five is five dollars"

The lunchlady at my university campus's cafeteria counts out the change exactly like this.

 

[cptjeff]

Speaking of counting change, something which everyone did back in the golden era, before the advent of computerized cash registers, how many can still do it? One buys an item for say 50 cents and gives the clerk a five dollar bill. Change is counted back something like "that is 50 cents, 75 cents, one dollar, two, three, four and five is five dollars" as it is being handed back to the customer. Seems simple. But a few years ago I was in line to pay the cashier, a young lady, at a restaurant when suddenly the power went out. This cashier was absolutely at a loss for making change. Customers had to help her out as she only knew how to do it via the computerized receipt. What else don't they teach in schools these days?

I'm trying to think back to when I was first taught to make change. I'm thinking 1st grade or so.

That's really quite pitiful. I'm only 20 and I've been hating my generation for years. We are a sorry lot, aren't we?

Oh, and I roll my own change. I do it every few months. Oddest thing was an old New York subway token. I did get a half dollar in change the other day though, that was surprising.

 

[Helysoune]

Nothing super interesting most of the time, but I fdo find wheat pennies and Canadian coins, and even an Indian head nickel once.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm trying to think back to when I was first taught to make change. I'm thinking 1st grade or so.

That's really quite pitiful. I'm only 20 and I've been hating my generation for years. We are a sorry lot, aren't we?

Nah, every time I see a post like yours I know there's hope. I teach all my concession kids at the theatre to make change the proper way, and I tell them that when they're my age they'll be able to pass it along to the next generation. Assuming all transactions aren't done with plastic by then.

The folks I really feel for, though, are those who learned to count change in pre-decimal British currency: ""Ere y'go gov, thruppence ha'penny-farthing makes a shilling, two-bob an' a tanner makes 'alf-a-crown. An' come back again soon, now."

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Now you have reminded me of all the times when I was living in Brazil and would go home for a short while..and come back to a totally different currency, name and all...

Within a 3 year period it changed 3 times....Cruzado then Cruzado Novo...then Cruzeiro.....

luckily for part of this, they still took the 'old' money and just whacked zero's off the end...or added them....

but keeping track of things like that is a challenge

 

[WideBrimm]

He, he! Oh my gosh. Yikes I would have been absolutely floored to get back change in pre-decimilized Britain! The only thing I ever learned (and remembered) about the old style British money is "Twelve pence to the shilling, and twenty shillings to the pound." Anything else (such as in a quote from the Bard) and I've got to look it up.

 

[WideBrimm]

Brazilian currency! That reminds me of when I was traveling in Argentina and Chile back in the mid 1970s, both countries had fairly recently converted their currencies from old pesos to new pesos. As a tourist, one had to be particularly careful to make sure one was receiving the correct bills back in change, not to be short changed. Currency changes can be very confusing.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

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Since 1904, good ol' Panama has been using U.S. dollar bills ... though they're called "Balboas".


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[WideBrimm]

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Since 1904, good ol' Panama has been using U.S. dollar bills ... though they're called "Balboas".


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They've got their own Balboa coins, which resemble U.S. coins. I believe they are minted by the U.S. mint.

Ecuador also adopted the U.S. dollar in 2000. Its sometimes referred to as the "Ecuadorian Dollar".

 

[Marc Chevalier]

They've got their own Balboa coins, which resemble U.S. coins.

Yep, and they have the same weight, thickness, circumference and metal content as the U.S. coins.


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[Edward]

Yep, and they have the same weight, thickness, circumference and metal content as the U.S. coins.


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Sounds a bit like the old Irish pound - the 'punt'. It was known North of the border as the 'punt', its Gaelic name, to distinguish it from the pound Sterling, but in the Republic they just called it a pound. For the most part, the coins were very similar (I suspected that they might have contracted their production out to the Royal Mint), except with various celtic animal designs harps, etc in place of the Queen and royal emblems on the UK coins. The one big difference was the Punt coin itself, which was slimmer, and significantly larger than the pound coin. Reminiscent of the old Crown (or, at least, the Churchill Crown I have somewhere, which I believe was a standard one with the design marking Churchill's death on it). Back in the days before the Euro coming in in the Republic, I regularly used to find Irish coins in my change in the North. They were often used in vending machines too, being for the most part the same size (though they changed the 5p to something smaller than the new UK one at the time it got smaller, and more sophisticated machines recognised the difference in size and weight). I also seem to remember a time back in the late 70s / early 80s when Irish coins were widely accepted as at same value as the UK equivalent in the North.

Just the other day I discovered a US quarter in my pocket - I presume it has been passed as a 10p somewhere, it's nearest size/shape/colour/etc relative in the UK.

I found a dime that someone had palmed off as a 5p funny thing is it's worth more than 5p at the moment, just.

Ain't that the truth!! Keeps going liek this, we'll end up spending the US dollar here instead of the pound! lol Maybe it'll hasten the Euro coming in.... [huh]

The coin star is a great little device. In some of the big banks in London they have the same device but there is no commission/fee and goes straight into your bank account.

Cool, not seen those in a bank. I've used to one in Sainsbury's in Whitechapel; it charges something like 4p in the pound. Once the coins are all in, it prints a voucher which can either be redeemed against goods or claimed as cash at the counter. Quite useful - I have a couple of jam jars full of coins at present which I really should see about checking in.

The folks I really feel for, though, are those who learned to count change in pre-decimal British currency: ""Ere y'go gov, thruppence ha'penny-farthing makes a shilling, two-bob an' a tanner makes 'alf-a-crown. An' come back again soon, now."

Jinkies, aye - I'm glad I never had to deal with that, though I'm sure there are still folks who complain it changed on ideological grounds, same as they object to decimalisation of weights and measures. [huh]

 

[Undertow]

Sadly, when I used to work at a liquor store, it was all too common, albeit often, to have someone turn in a portion of their coin collection for booze. I would regularly buy out Franklin Silver 1/2 Dollars, Kennedy Silver 1/2 dollars, Eisenhower Moon Dollars, Liberty Dimes, Buffalo Nickles, red dollars, blue dollars, etc.

 

[randooch]

The Coin Beaker

I have an enormous laboratory beaker for change at home. When it gets too heavy, maybe once a year, it goes to the bank's counting machine. Malheureusement, nothing more interesting than aspirin and ibuprofin gets spit out.

 

[jeep44]

I got a 1 yuan coin from China in my change recently. A sign of things to come?

(this is a poster from the remake of 'Red Dawn')

 

[GreyBadger]

I have bucket loads of small Swiss change - I can never be bothered to take it back over, and I just collect more on every trip (which is fairly regularly). Must do something about that...

 

[High Pockets]

That's really quite pitiful. I'm only 20 and I've been hating my generation for years. We are a sorry lot, aren't we?

So were we,......and we still are.

I have to admit, I don't even look at my change anymore,.....my only uses for coins are vending machines and parking meters. The pennies I'm given either go in the little tray at the register or I chunk 'em across the parking lot on the way to the car,.....they're not worth carrying anymore.