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The Circle of Life: Bad Penny Version

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  • The Circle of Life: Bad Penny Version

    Something I posted in another thread reminded me of this lost tale from two hacks ago.

    My husband works in a coin store and also collects coins as a hobby. One of the questions which always make him cringe inwardly is "Are these worth anything?" When he looks to see what "these" are, it is almost always a huge heap of circulated coins belonging to a recently dead relative.

    Now coins are always worth something. They are money, after all. For instance, unless you mutilate it horribly, you can count on a quarter to be worth 25 cents. If it turns out you are lucky enough to have a somewhat unusual or old quarter it might be worth more than that, say 30 cents or maybe even 50 cents. The quarters rare enough to be worth thousands are just that. Rare. As in "very unlikely to be found in grandpa's accumulated pocket change."

    OK. Now that I've set the background, here is the actual story.

    My husband was working at the coin shop when a guy came in with a large jar of older circulated wheatback pennies (the design on the reverse had two stalks of wheat for decoration instead of the Lincoln Memorial; it was the prior design to the one we have now) and asked the fateful question, "Hey. My grandpa kept these for years. Are they worth anything?" The boss gave them a quick glance and decided to buy the lot for face value plus 5%. The guy was convinced he was being ripped off and argued a bit, but was told that was the final deal, finally accepted the price offered and left.

    My husband got the fun job of cherry picking the pennies. He put the ones they wanted to sell in holders or the 10 for a dollar bin and set the rest aside to roll up and deposit at the bank as cash.

    That bank deposit turned out to be a huge job. My husband was rolling wheatback pennies every day for two weeks whenever he wasn't busy with other things. He'd come home smelling like copper. Blech.

    He was also the one who had to go to the bank and make the daily deposits. He felt bad about going in every day with these multiple rolls of pennies, so he felt like he needed to apologize a bit and explain why he was doing that. The tellers were fine about it, of course. They even got to joking with him about it.

    So one day he was making the daily deposit with one of the last batches of penny rolls, when one of the tellers told him that some of their commercial customers were buying pennies for their tills at the bank and the bank was starting to sell off the wheatback rolls. A couple of customers even came back and remarked on the cool old pennies.

    My husband didn't think much of that until he started noticing people coming into his store asking, "I got a whole roll of these old pennies at the bank. Are they worth anything?"
    The best karma is letting a jerk bash himself senseless on the wall of your polite indifference.

    The stupid is strong with this one.

  • #2
    ::shoulder pats:: Poor guy.

    My dad and I both have a (small) penchant for collecting unusual money (including one or two old wheat pennies and the like), but not really with the intent that they'll be worth something more someday. It's just fun and nifty. My dad's even got a small number of $2 bills, and I happen to have a couple of pence and yen (nifty enough to an American who's only ben outside the US once and that was to go on a cruise along the coast of Mexico).
    "Enough expository banter. It's time we fight like men. And ladies. And ladies who dress like men. For Gilgamesh...IT'S MORPHING TIME!"
    - Gilgamesh, Final Fantasy V

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    • #3
      My husband collects for the same reasons. He can't afford the pricy investment stuff so he collects stuff nobody else wants.

      His collection is absolutely huge, but most of the coins are worth only a few cents, a few are worth a couple of dollars. The collection weighs a ton. If anyone were foolish enough to steal the collection, they'd probably ruin their shocks and then go nuts spending the next few weeks unloading the "loot" five dollars at a time until they bring it to the wrong store and get caught.
      The best karma is letting a jerk bash himself senseless on the wall of your polite indifference.

      The stupid is strong with this one.

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      • #4
        Hehe I'm one of those 'wheatie penny,' along with Bicentennial quarter collectors. And no, I don't go into coin shops to ask about them

        I too haven't been out of the US (except to Canada in 1992 and '95), so my collection of foreign coins is limited. I did however, score some Israeli coins from my grandmother some years ago.

        ...now my stamp collection is another story. American stamps are pretty boring when you consider some of the things other countries put on theirs. I have shiny foil "coin" stamps from Tonga, one with an MG from some little country in Africa, and several with trains on them. You simply don't see that type of variety here.

        If you really want to see something interesting, take a look at any of the 1930 German stamp issues, and compare them with what came out in the 1920s and after 1945--two totally different messages on them.
        Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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        • #5
          I have a small US coin collection, mainly old stuff found in my grandparents' house. Among that is a bag of wheat pennies with a sheet of paper containing a list of dates...none of which match anything actually in the bag, so we're left wondering what if anything that list means.

          The bulk of my collection is oddball foreign currency half of which is known but obsolete and the other half I can't identify.
          "I am quite confident that I do exist."
          "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

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          • #6
            Maybe the list of dates are the ones not yet in the bag?

            I'm another odd-coin collector and I have a collection of silver quarters, regular half-dollars and dollars, Susan Bs and the new dollar coins (boy were those shabbily done), plus a number of $2 bills.

            ^-.-^
            Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others. - Dresden

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            • #7
              Quoth Andara Bledin View Post
              plus a number of $2 bills.
              See the $2 bills reminded me of this story at Snopes.com

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              • #8
                Quoth Andara Bledin View Post
                Susan Bs and the new dollar coins (boy were those shabbily done).
                I assume you're talking about the Sacajewea dollars, not the (newer) presedential ones?

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                • #9
                  I get two dollar bills and sacajawea/susan b anthony's all the time, I don't give any fuss over them, even though I've been told I can't take them. Not because my managers think they're fake, but becuase its a hassle for them, they have to fill out some paper work and they have to counted seperately for somereason that would only make since to a suit behind a desk somewhere.

                  I just switch them out with my own money.

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                  • #10
                    I've got some really old stuff here, like a 1932 twenty dollar bill, but yeah, even I have had some funny run ins with money.

                    I remember years ago handing two two dollar bills over to a gas station attendant, only to have him laugh hand it back and ask for real money. Got rather irritated when I told him it was real. It took a lady in line behind me who happened to be a bank teller to get them to belive me.
                    Learn wisdom by the follies of others.

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                    • #11
                      Quoth repsac View Post
                      ...It took a lady in line behind me who happened to be a bank teller to get them to belive me.
                      I'm half-way surprised he didn't accuse the both of you being a 2-person con-man operation.
                      ...WHY DO YOU TEMPT WHAT LITTLE FAITH IN HUMANITY I HAVE!?! -- Kalga
                      And I want a pony for Christmas but neither of us is getting what we want OK! What you are asking is impossible. -- Wicked Lexi

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