Is there any significance to the shape of a coin?

tlhoy

One last question before I leave today. What's the reason to make coins with different shapes?
Just curious,
Glenn

mrpaseo

Off the top of my head I know coins are made in different shapes fro the sight impaired, also to help transactions to go quicker.

Anyone else know?
Ray

sumnom

We have talked about this before but there is a reason why cash coins have holes and, as if that weren't enough, there is a reason why they are square...

mrpaseo

I believe the holes are so they can be worn arount the neck on a necklace. Don't know about the square.

mrpaseo

Post a pic of your odd shaped coin

or here

Odd shape, odd medal...

tlhoy

"Off the top of my head I know coins are made in different shapes fro the sight impaired"

That's true for today, but odd shaped coins have been made for centuries & back then no one cared about the blind.

"also to help transactions to go quicker" Now this makes sense to me.

Thanks Ray, I also found those 2 threads in a search but neither really answered my question.
Glenn

spinaker2000

Be sure to blow the horn when you pass by Greensboro NC on Hwy 40!! Drive safe!!

tbirde56

A major reason may be the same as why they use different metals for different denominations: to quickly to be able to tell the denominations apart from each other.

Askari

Sometimes it's just artistic flair. The art nouveau period, for instance, broke the tradition of making medals round and many medalists designed coins as well. Such "out-of-round" coin designs have generally continued to follow geometric patterns, but the expanding popularity of the vending machine has all but driven non-round circulating coinage into the past.

sumnom

The hole in cash coins is for stringing the coins into batches of 100 or 1000. Mint records speak of production in terms of "strings of cash."

Cash coins were produced with a mold. Each mold had spaces for several dozen coins. When the coins come out of the mold, they were all attached to one another by small strands of metal. The coins were then broken apart and the edges sanded smooth. Rather than do this one coin at a time, hundreds of coins were placed on a square rod and the edges were smoothed using a large rasp. Since both the hole and the rod were square, the coins remained steady as they were sanded down.

Donovan

It depends on the issue. Your 50p coin was made 7 sided in order to distinguish it from the similar sized 10p coin after decimalization.