Dimes you say?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

The Coinstar machine in my store doesn't charge a fee so long as you choose to get your money back in the form of a gift card, either for my store or a variety of other stores. I don't know why more people don't use this option.

Because I want the money, not a gift card.

This is why I always take my loose change to my bank. AFAIK I don't get charged a fee for this service...yet.

And I'm due to make the trip there soon. My beer pitcher full of loose change is getting pretty full.

[wolfie]

and the £ sign itself is a stylised L, standing for 'libra', the Latin for 'pound'.

And time was when a pound coin (known as a sovereign) was made of gold (half the thickness but the same diameter and weight as the modern brass coin). That meant it was genuinely worth something, even in places where a reliable exchange rate wasn't available - that's why James Bond was sometimes shown to be issued with a roll of them.

Just curious, but did the name "pound" come from it being worth a pound of silver?

Sounds like the old sovereign was a "bullion coin", as were a lot of older coins (in the U.S., the silver dollar, half dollar, quarter, and dime). From what I've read, the U.S. silver coins all had the same weight per unit of face value - note that the nickel (from its name, implies that it was always made of base metal) doesn't fit this sequence, and it's the only "looks like silver" U.S. coin without the reeded edge (i.e. not worth filing down to "skim" a bit of its metal).

"Bullion coins" were popular in an era where nobody trusted the government's promise of "we have this much real wealth to back our currency", but did trust the government's promise of "when we stamp out a coin, we promise that it contains the right amount of precious metal".

[Monterey Jack]

Because I want the money, not a gift card.

Provided the gift card is for a store I frequent, I don't really see the difference.

[taxguykarl]

There you go forgetting the name of the forum, Jack.
Nevertheless, I keep quarters for parking and rarely accumulate that much. For smaller change, I have been known to feed SCO machines when I pay with cash and my pocket starts to get heavy....yes, I only do this when there aren't others waiting.

[Shalom]

Just curious, but did the name "pound" come from it being worth a pound of silver?

Pretty sure that 240 pence weighed a pound, but those were copper. Also I think those were larger coins than the pence they used immediately pre-decimalization. (The old style high-wheeler bicycles were referred to as "pennyfarthing" bicycles in the UK because of the disparity of the sizes of the wheels, as those two coins were.)

Sounds like the old sovereign was a "bullion coin", as were a lot of older coins (in the U.S., the silver dollar, half dollar, quarter, and dime).

Also the half-dime, which was the smallest silver coin, worth 5 cents. ("Dime" was originally "disme" which is apparently an ancient word for one-tenth, related to "decimal". The coin actually says "One Dime" on it, rather than "Ten Cents".)

From what I've read, the U.S. silver coins all had the same weight per unit of face value - note that the nickel (from its name, implies that it was always made of base metal) doesn't fit this sequence, and it's the only "looks like silver" U.S. coin without the reeded edge (i.e. not worth filing down to "skim" a bit of its metal).

There were also 3¢ nickels, once upon a time. Never seen one, or even a picture.

Nickels allegedly weigh exactly 5.000 grams when released from the Mint. I weighed one on my pharmaceutical balance against known good weights (2+2+1 grams) to see. It was off by quite a bit (don't remember which way). This is unfortunate, because the actual 5g weight in that set had fallen down the sink, and I had to buy another one off eBay. I'd been hoping that I could grab a random nickel and use it as a substitute until the real one showed up, but that was not to be.

"Bullion coins" were popular in an era where nobody trusted the government's promise of "we have this much real wealth to back our currency", but did trust the government's promise of "when we stamp out a coin, we promise that it contains the right amount of precious metal".

In Biblical times, all money was that way. The ancient Hebrew verb for "pay" literally means "weigh out". Every merchant had scales, and it didn't matter who issued the coin or whose face was on it, or even how worn out it was, you weighed it out and figured out how much it was worth. Even if the weights weren't standardized, you could still figure out how much silver and/or copper you had. (Cupronickel alloy hadn't been invented yet, and nobody walked around with gold in their pockets.)

Speaking of which, as an interesting coincidence, yesterday's Daf Yomi discussed payouts of divorce settlements, and it seems that one gold denarius was worth 25 silver ones in those days, because they use the term "three gold" as an abbreviation for 75 denarii with no further elucidation.

[Chromatix]

Just curious, but did the name "pound" come from it being worth a pound of silver?

Yes - and "libra" is also where the 'lb' abbreviation for pounds weight comes from.

The gold sovereign, though it had a face value of £1, was actually worth considerably more than that for most of its life, due to the relative appreciation of gold relative to silver. Gold sovereigns and half-sovereigns are still minted as bullion coins in their own right (and remain among the more popular gold bullion coins), but no longer have a face value.

One penny was worth one pennyweight of silver - a very small amount, weighing much less than the copper coin. Wikipedia sez a penny weighed 9.1g, so 240 of them would weigh 2184g, which is nearly five pounds.

Copper wasn't a bullion metal, but eventually it stil ended up being worth more than the face value of the coin, which is why modern "coppers" are merely copper-plated. It's straightforward to tell the difference with a magnet, since copper, silver and gold are all non-magnetic metals, but nickel and steel *are* magnetic; coin slots used to use this to distinguish real coins from fakes, but it's no longer a useful metric for most modern coins.

[AccountingDrone]

Money is a fun subject - and some ancient coinage is well available and not overly expensive. I know the classic "Widows Mite" has been a popular purchase for many Christians. I would have to check this weekend, but I believe that my grandmother's charm bracelet had both a widows mite and a mustard seed encased between 2 crystals.

Somewhere I have a handful of assorted Roman coinage that my Grandmother decided to 'shine up' *sigh* I haven't seen them in decades, they might be knocking around in my fathers bedroom junk drawer. I know he has a junk change box up there with assorted stuff he found over the decades.

[wolfie]

Copper wasn't a bullion metal, but eventually it stil ended up being worth more than the face value of the coin, which is why modern "coppers" are merely copper-plated. It's straightforward to tell the difference with a magnet, since copper, silver and gold are all non-magnetic metals, but nickel and steel *are* magnetic; coin slots used to use this to distinguish real coins from fakes, but it's no longer a useful metric for most modern coins.

My understanding is that the modern U.S. penny is copper-plated zinc, and so would not be attracted to a magnet. Also, that the "sandwich" construction of modern U.S. "silver" coins was to give the same weight and electrical properties as the silver coins they replaced.

Interesting tidbit: From what I've read, there is only ONE U.S. coin that contains no copper (gold and silver coins had some copper as an alloying ingredient). Which coin was it? The 1943 steel penny (wartime copper shortage).

[bankworking]

Before we got our coin machine and had to take rolled coin at the bank (now they have to send it through the coin machine...free for customers), I had one lady who came on a regular basis and would purposefully put an extra coin or two in every single roll to make certain she wasn't short. Of course, being over in my drawer is as bad or worse than being short as it indicates a customer being shorted, so I learned to check her coins immediately and not let them get mixed in with anyone else's rolled coins. That way, I could credit the difference to her account and not be off.

[Dreamstalker]

Here's what I have in a wooden sake cup on my desk:

--Peace dollar that is worn almost smooth (I've been pondering what I could have made from the metal)
--2-3 steel pennies
--A few copper slugs
--(sadly dirty and damaged) 1885 V nickel. Worthless in its present condition but still a cool piece
--1847 Aus quarter (I think it's a quarter)
--Assorted paper money; Canadian one-pound note, Antarctic bills, pre-2004 Northern Bank (UK) note, etc
--Various foreign coins that I amassed simply cuz I like the designs
--all issued NYC transit tokens until they were phased out, and a few MBTA tokens

And we have two 'mad money' jars for Japan and Canada (the former was created back when we still had money and a zillion air miles and I still keep it; the latter was started 2 or so years ago when the church business manager gave us $50 or so in said currency from the collection baskets because he didn't see any benefit to converting it).

[WishfulSpirit]

Don't see many odd coins where I work (despite being in a very international city) but we did have a UK ten pence piece floating around for a while.

[Dreamstalker]

I've seen Canadian coins in rolls that we get 'factory sealed' from the armored car company. Every coin counter I've seen rejects those (and IME so does the bank), so how did they get there?

[notalwaysright]

Yeah, I know, I'm the one who really lost, having to count all of that, but it was so sweet to realize that not only were we NOT cheated, they cheated themselves

Well, assuming you'd be paid for your time regardless of if you spent it counting coins or doing other tasks, you didn't really lose. The company who employes you lost, because they had to pay you to count the coins. But they probably don't see it that way. They see it as just "keeping a customer happy."

That's a lot of dimes. I mean, if it was mixed pennies, nickles, and such it would make at least some sense. But only dimes?

Oh, and we sometimes get Canadian pennies in with the US pennies in the rolls from the bank. Arg! They are phased out in Canada, no one wants them! I think technically you can bring them in to a Canadian bank to change them into other coins, but who wants to do that?

[greek_jester]

I think technically you can bring them in to a Canadian bank to change them into other coins, but who wants to do that?

Someone who's found about 5,000 pennies in rolls in a box?