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Interesting Blank Planchet on eBay
Rampage
Posts: 9,418 ✭✭✭✭
https://www.ebay.com/itm/172502213332?hash=item2829eee2d4:g:E~oAAOSw2xRYin7N
Does anyone have any idea what kind of planchet this may be? This is not my listing. I am just curious. Can't say I have seen one of these before.
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It's a big world out there. It didn't have to be US.
Google "copper coin 6.4 g" and you'll find some possibilities.
It also could be for purposes other than coins.
It’s not a US blank at all obviously – looks to me like it’s a quarter slug like the ones that came out of New York City in the mid to late 1970s that were used for the subway turnstilesI had heard there was some mob connection but could not be sure
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
Thank you, Fred. Much appreciated.
I never said it had to the the US. That was an assumption you made. Do not feel pressured to respond if you do not know the answer (as is the case here). Simply do not respond. There is no shame in not knowing the answer. As is usually the case, someone with much more knowledge will chime in, such as Fred did here. And, if you do know the answer, consider directing the person to the proper literature rather than the google catch-all that so many love to do. Whether you believe it or not, Google does not know everything.
Does sort of resemble them, but most of the ones I saw at Coin World back in the 70's had reeded edges. This one says the edge is plain.
The copper slugs were quite a problem for a while. Some coin wrapping venues switched to roll wrappers that had a long, clear plastic panel down the length of the roll so you could look to see if the roll had any slugs in it. Maybe the plain ones came first and the reeded ones came later to make them harder to spot by the edges. I don't know.
The mob connection was never proven one way or the other. Some rumors that I heard said that the mob was making and selling them for $5 or $6 a roll. Another rumor I heard was that some private entrepreneur was making them and the mob put him out of business because the slugs kept turning up in mob-owned juke boxes. Again, I don't know.
Turnstiles tend to be fairly low-tech when it comes to slug rejection. When I moved to Chicago back in the 80's the CTA had two sizes of metallic tokens, a small one for regular customers and a larger one for disabled customers. To use a disabled one on a subway or bus I had to show it to a human booth attendant or driver and show a photo I.D. from the CTA. Otherwise normally-abled people would buy and use them.
Meanwhile, most normally-abled people just dropped a token in a turnstile and went through. Some used foreign coins that were the same size. The one that worked best was the German One Pfennig, worth less than one U.S. cent. At the coin shop I worked at we bought in lots of foreign coins from travellers who came back from trips and discovered that their banks would only exchange foreign paper money, not coins. We would then sell it in bundles, such as $20US worth of all Swiss Francs or British Pounds or German Marks for people to use as tip money if they were going over there. Usually nothing smaller in the bundle than the one-half unit of the country.
We would not sell any German One Pfennigs because we knew that people were using them to cheat the CTA. People would come in with the wildest of excuses for why they needed 100 or 200 One Pfennig pieces. "My kid needs it for an art project" was one such excuse. One guy called and said that his kid was taking German in high school and he wanted to give out a Pfennig to each student. To call his bluff I said come on in and I'll take care of you. He came in and asked for me and I presented him with 100 TWO Pfennig pieces, which were of course larger and would not work in the turnstiles, though they would have been fine for a handout. For the entire group the price I quoted him was exactly $1US. He passed.
@CaptHenway
Thank you for the details. I find it very intriguing.
What a rude response. When I Google the term indicated, I found a number of coins it could be (Finland 5 pennia, for example) so I provided that suggestion.
I'm sorry you couldn't be bothered repeating my search. You could page through 2000 pages of the Krause catalog, but I thought the Google option was easier.
My apologies for trying to help. I didn't have time to create a complete list from my Google search.
I am, frankly, shocked at your response to my attempt to help.
One little result from my unappreciated Google search
https://www.ngccoin.com/price-guide/world/finland-5-penniä-km-15-1896-1917-cuid-1200632-duid-1246467
Probably a rusted hole out of a metal electrical box. I think I have some laying around. I will create an alt and post here with my rare and expensive discovery, asking if it’s colonial!
Could you provide a literature reference?
Do you call those knockouts 'holes'? 🙂
They call them "donut holes"
No, I sure can't... I was trying to lighten things up with a little humor. Swing and a miss!
I laughed...
Thai 5 baht coins are in two varieties, both are sandwich compositioned like the US quarter. The older ones are thicker, but the newer ones are thinner and will work as a quarter in vending machines.
... I cried...
could be half cent slick that was flattened some
it looks like some denticles remains on edge
@CaptHenway.... Thanks for the interesting history of the subway cheats.... Did not know it was that widespread. I was out of the country for much of the 70's.
The first image of that blank 'appears' to have an upset rim.... could be just my imagination. Cheers, RickO