Pfennig Check!!! Post Any Coin Tradition Or Story You Might Have........

OAKSTAR

.......here's mine. If a service member did not have a Pfennig, they would have to buy the next round of drinks. I learned the hard way when I first arrived in-country. Never made that mistake again! I've had this in my wallet ever since!

It was a common saying: When someone yelled out: WHO WANTS A FREE BEER?? We all knew some poor new guy just arrived and we were taking him out to lunch at a local Bavarian Brauhaus.

https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/584692/challenge-coins-a-tradition-of-excellence/

https://www.challengecoins4less.com/blog/challenge-coin-rules-learn-them-or-risk-buying-a-round

ricko

@OAKSTAR ... I had not heard about the pfennig, but definitely the challenge coin tradition. That is what led me to collect challenge coins.... I now have them from many different organizations... I have well over a hundred now, in a four sided display case. Cheers, RickO

jmski52

I took a side road into German coinage awhile back, and then into some European coins as well. There are plenty of rabbit holes to go down in this hobby.

Got some nice pfennigs, too.

airplanenut

Not coin related, but related to your story... a friend of mine used to live in my neighborhood when he was stationed at our local Air Force base, where he was a C17 captain. One Sunday during the football playoffs (during one of the years when the Seahawks went deep) I had a few buddies over to watch the game, and he came with a ton of beer. The reason? He was off to Ramstein the next morning and had to return the bottles so he could get his deposit back. Thus, beer for everybody!

ShaunBC5

My wife puts one quarter for every year of age in my kids shoes for when they wake up on their birthday.
She put 9 quarters in my son’s shoe last night.
I feel like I should know why she does this but I have no clue. With a 9 and 12 year old I feel like it’s too late to ask.

1630Boston

@ShaunBC5 said:

I feel like I should know why she does this but I have no clue. With a 9 and 12 year old I feel like it’s too late to ask.

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It's like the tooth fairy
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The Birthday Shoe has been a tradition in our family for 3 generations, starting from my grandmother Helen.

You see, when my mother was a child, she would leave her favorite shoe out on the eve of her birthday. In the morning, she would wake up to see that the birthday fairy had visited, leaving quarters for her! Since money was tight, these quarters were so meaningful and my mother got to spend them on whatever her heart desired.
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Here's the formula: 1 quarter for every year old the birthday person is. Plus one extra for good luck!

1630Boston

Here's a coin story related to this coin
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"The Pine Tree Shillings"
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John Hull, the mint master, gave his daughter Betsey’s weight in Pine Tree shillings as her dowry.
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In the early colonial days Captain John Hull was the mint-master of Massachusetts, and coined all the money that was made there. This was a new line of business; for, in the earlier days of the colony, the current coinage consisted of gold and silver money of England, Portugal, and Spain.
Hence they were called pine-tree shillings. And for every twenty shillings that he coined, Captain John Hull was entitled to put one shilling into his own pocket.

When the mint-master, Captain John Hull, had grown very rich, a young man by the name of Samuel Sewell came a-courting his only daughter.
On the wedding-day, John Hull dressed himself in a plum-colored coat, all the buttons of which were made of pine tree shillings. The buttons of his waistcoat were sixpences, and the knees of his small-clothes were buttoned with silver threepences.
The mint-master was pleased with his son-in-law, especially as he had courted Miss Betsey out of pure love, and had said nothing at all about her portion. So, when the marriage ceremony was over, Captain Hull whispered a word to two of his men, who immediately went out, and soon returned lugging a large pair of scales. They were such a pair as wholesale merchants use for weighing bulky commodities.
"Daughter Betsey," said the mint-master; "get into one side of these scales."
Then the servants, at Captain Hull's command, heaped double handfuls of shillings into one side of the scales, while Betsey remained in the other. Jingle, jingle, went the shillings, as handful after handful was thrown in, till, plump and ponderous as she was, they fairly weighed down the young lady from the floor.

** "There, son Sewell!" cried the honest mint-master, "take these shillings for my daughter's portion. Use her kindly, and thank Heaven for her. It is not every wife that's worth her weight in silver!"** (Story excerpted from Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Whole History of Grandfather's Chair / Or, True Stories from New England History, 1620-1808. Available through Gutenberg.org )
full story here https://sites.google.com/a/eou.edu/stem-stories/home-explorations-coin-stem/pine-tree-shillings-story

ShaunBC5

Thanks @1630Boston !
I didn’t know if other people did it or if it was just her thing. Apparently my family wasn’t cool enough for the quarters when I was growing up.
We don’t do the “one to grow on” unless it’s birthday spankings.

jesbroken

I had two bags of pfennig's. Gave one to a member's son 10 or so years ago to start a hobby. The other I still have somewhere. All are pre 1972 as that was when I left Hahn AB, Germany. Spent 3 wonderful years there.
Good luck with your collecting. BTW, there were plenty of tricks to pull on newbies in order to get a free round. Never saw one where the poor sucker had to buy a round for the whole bar. No newbies I knew of would have had the funds to do so if so charged. lol
Jim

OAKSTAR

@airplanenut said:
Not coin related, but related to your story... a friend of mine used to live in my neighborhood when he was stationed at our local Air Force base, where he was a C17 captain. One Sunday during the football playoffs (during one of the years when the Seahawks went deep) I had a few buddies over to watch the game, and he came with a ton of beer. The reason? He was off to Ramstein the next morning and had to return the bottles so he could get his deposit back. Thus, beer for everybody!

Great story! So the guy loaded the empty beer bottles on the C-17 and brought them back to Germany for the deposit!! Love it!!! 😂 🤣 👍🏻

OAKSTAR

@jesbroken said:
I had two bags of pfennig's. Gave one to a member's son 10 or so years ago to start a hobby. The other I still have somewhere. All are pre 1972 as that was when I left Hahn AB, Germany. Spent 3 wonderful years there.
Good luck with your collecting. BTW, there were plenty of tricks to pull on newbies in order to get a free round. Never saw one where the poor sucker had to buy a round for the whole bar. No newbies I knew of would have had the funds to do so if so charged. lol
Jim

For me, this coin tradition started in Bad Aibling.

No, the newbie's weren't buying for the entire bar... Just the group of guys that took them to lunch.

airplanenut

My great grandparents were poor to the extent that it's lost to history how they could afford to put away $7.50. Nevertheless, they did...

OAKSTAR

Wow. Very nice @airplanenut!!

JWP

I started carrying this Half Dollar in my pocket after leaving Navy boot camp in 1971. It has been with me all over the world, because with Jack in my pocket I knew I was never broke ( it was close quite often though). He was a real buddy when I transferred to the USAF and he never said a word, just stayed in my pocket and enjoyed the ride.

The_Dinosaur_Man

I like pfennigs, though I only have one or two. Most BU examples cost all of $10 to $20 going back to the formation of the German Empire. With ten mints and spanning a few decades, a whole run of pfennigs assembled into a collection would be worth in the ballpark of $30,000.

As a youngster getting into the hobby, I remember poring over my first Red Book, the 2004 edition, and coming across the listing for the 1996-W dime. Having already learned about P and D mints from pocket change and even finding the occasional "S", getting something from West Point that was affordable was fascinating. I made sure to get myself down to the LCS and ask for one, and the kindly old soul managing the counter at the time provided me one still sealed in the mint cellophane. I got a small picture frame for the coin and placed it on my bedside bureau. Nearly twenty years later, I still have it in that picture frame.