Going through my brothers' coin collection

lathmach

My brother died a year ago this month. My sister in law wants me to sell his collection.
He made notes, here and there, and I just found one that made me chuckle:
In 1954, the price of a pack of cigarettes was 22 cents. The vendor would slice the top of the cellophane on the edge of the pack and slide 3 pennies inside the cellophane. That way a person inserting a quarter into the canteen machine would get his pack of smokes and change. Yours truly, always being broke and having a bad habit of smoking, found that Jap ten yen coins would work in the machines. Having a handful of these provided free smokes for quite a while. A person would always get his 3 cents back, the rate of exchange.
Later they installed a magnet that wouldn't attract copper coinage.
But by that time I had run out of Jap coins.

Ray

100proof1957

Back in the day !
Smokes were 50 cents a pack,spent hrs in the garage on the bench grinder turning cents into the diameter of dimes !
local cig machine.
5 cents,pack of smokes !

grip

I can relate ,and remember both posts
Al

alergar

Lived in England (Woodbridge AFB) for 5 1/2 years, 72 thru 78.

The English 5 pence piece was the same size and weight as a quarter, value about 12 1/2 cents.
We used to buy rolls of them downtown and use them in the vending and pinball machines.

One real cool thing was they had soda machines that carried beer it the barracks !!

darktone

I remember getting a gallon of gas in my motorcycle and a pack of smokes with a dollar.....

anoldgoat

I guess growing up in Carolina had it's perks(?). I started smoking in '63, it was $.17 a pack off the shelf. Was $1.85 a carton when I left Carolina in 1977. When it reached $2 a pack here in California in '93 I quit. Just couldn't believe it was more for a pack than I used to pay for a carton. I guess it worked out for the better.

Mike

haletj

And a year later (1955) in the Boston area you could get a 1955 double die in that 3 cents change.