Have you thrown away any coins?

thelawnet

Just received an 1834 Netherlands Indies 1/2 gulden from ebay. Luckily I went to leave feedback on ebay a few hours later.

Noticed I'd ordered an 1855 1/20 gulden (0.61g of silver) from the same seller. But where is it?

After searching through several bags of rubbish I found it, still inside its envelope (due to the bad postal system, Indonesian sellers tend to enclose items in side several layers of card, foam and sticky tape. It was so small (inside a folded zip-lock bag) I hadn't noticed it before.

It wasn't expensive anyway.....

Aethelred

Sometimes when I buy a big lot of coins and find a base metal coin in the batch that is damaged, I'll just toss it into the trash.

ajaan

I threw away a bunch of broken Chinese Cash coins I received.

Hyperion

I've given coins away, but never thrown them away.

farthing

A number of years ago I received a small baggie of English 3d coins from an eBay seller and the coins were literally dripping green slime. The coins went straight to the trash.

lordmarcovan

Deliberately? Yes. I once threw some really nasty corroded zinc Lincoln cents I had found with my detector back out into the lawn. They weren't even spendable.

Accidentally? Sadly, the answer to that is also "yes". I once carried an ornate 19th century love token to work with me in a flip, which I slid inside my cigarette pack. I then smoked the last cigarette from the pack and threw it away. By the time I realized my mistake, the trash had been emptied and was in the giant compactor, long past retrievable. Sometime in the 23rd century, archaeologists will find an 1887 Seated Liberty dime love token in a layer of 1990s trash and be mystified. Moral of the story? Don't smoke, kiddies- it makes you stupid.

When I had a part time job assisting a coin dealer in North Carolina (the one Aethelred works for now), he wouldn't let me empty the trash. He reserved that job for himself, because once a gold coin (a US $2.50 Indian, I believe) had fallen from his desk into the wastebasket. At the end of each day, he'd spread out the contents of the wastebasket and check it before the trash went out. (Does he still do that, Michael? Seems one of those little handheld electronic metal detecting/pinpointing probes would come in handy).

savoyspecial

no one can top Fred Weinberg's story that has been posted on the U.S. Forum a few times.......if i recall a Stella $4 gold is sitting somewhere in a California landfill

anyone with a metal detector reading this from the west coast??

zeebob

I regularly toss coins (lightside and darkside) into soccer fields, playgrounds, school yards and on sidewalks downtown. None have much value, but all should be interesting for other people to find. I get a kick out of watching a bunch of 1st graders playing soccer only to have one kid stop in the middle of the pack to pick up some crown sized shiny coin. Soon the soccer throng dissociates as individual kids forget about soccer and begin milling about looking to see if other coins are in the offing. Whistles blow as coaches try to impose a semblance of order on a small herd of 7 year old kids hunting for coins in the grass. Very funny to watch. Ya never know when you might be able to spark one kid's interest in numismatics.

ASUtodd

I had a 1857 Flying Eagle (had a hole in it at the top and bottom from where it appeared it had been sewn to clothing by a soldier or someone else). The coin was in great, and I mean great, shape so I put it in a plastic slab that I had at the house. I took it to work with me (I am a Detective for our local Police Department) to show to my fellow coin collector and best friend. He and I went to lunch and on the way back heard a call go out about an officer chasing a robbery suspect. We found the suspect running through the National Cemetery here in the town (This is where civil war soldiers and soldiers from all walks of life, war, and time served are buried). After chasing him across the cemetery I caught him trying to go over a fence. When we got done and got back to the car I noticed I had lost my Flying Eagle. We looked all over the place and never found the coin. I posted this story on the light side of this forum and was pleasantly surprised when one of the posters, BlindedByEgo, sent me a PM advising me he was sending me a replacement 1857 flying eagle. He sent me the coin and it isn't much grade wise but to me is one of the most valuable coins I own. I have it in a airtite holder sitting in my curio cabinet. It meant a lot to me that someone would take the time to send me something like that.
Todd

coinkat

Not intentionally

spoon

I like to toss old beat up cheapos in places people might find them, kinda like zeebob. And since I move so often I usually bury a stash of current year coins and some from other places I've lived in the yard when gardening, just to have fun with the future MDers

1jester

I give them away, but have not gotten up the nerve to throw any away, even a group of bad Indian fakes I got from one unscrupulous seller. My good (?!) counterfeits I have placed in collections of other noted counterfeit collectors. Coins of low value I will give to people, usually kids, to hopefully spark their interest in coins.

SaorAlba

I bought a 1670 Bristol Farthing, 17th century token from an ebay seller once. The coin arrived the day my mother died. I know I got the coin, but as near as I can tell I opened the enveloped, looked at the coin and then put the coin back in the envelope and accidentally threw the envelope out without thinking about the coin still being in it.

Unfortunately it was a very nice VF specimen.

Muygrandeoso

<< <i>I regularly toss coins (lightside and darkside) into soccer fields, playgrounds, school yards and on sidewalks downtown. None have much value, but all should be interesting for other people to find. I get a kick out of watching a bunch of 1st graders playing soccer only to have one kid stop in the middle of the pack to pick up some crown sized shiny coin. Soon the soccer throng dissociates as individual kids forget about soccer and begin milling about looking to see if other coins are in the offing. Whistles blow as coaches try to impose a semblance of order on a small herd of 7 year old kids hunting for coins in the grass. Very funny to watch. Ya never know when you might be able to spark one kid's interest in numismatics. >>



So I am not the only that "seeds" school yards and side walks. I mostly use modern CuNi crowns, but also use old coppers. It is fun to imagine kids finding a treasure, and as you say
you never know what might turn someone into a collector.

lordmarcovan

<< <i>no one can top Fred Weinberg's story that has been posted on the U.S. Forum a few times.......if i recall a Stella $4 gold is sitting somewhere in a California landfill

anyone with a metal detector reading this from the west coast?? >>

I do recall that nightmarish tale, now that you mention it.

A metal detector would do you no good at all in a landfill, unless it was a Pre-Columbian or Native American landfill (or some other culture that didn't produce massive quantities of metallic trash). On Andrews Island here in Brunswick, GA, where they dump the dredge spoil that comes off the bottom of the harbor and the sound, there is all kinds of pottery and glass and bits of stuff that went overboard from ships over the last four or five centuries, but I found a metal detector useless there, for the sheer quantity of rebar and steel cable and aluminum cans and other metallic junk. It was a great place to eyeball fossil shark teeth, though.

OzzyAndy

I never throw any away but put any worthless stuff that I don't collect into a bag and use it when I teach probability at school, give the kids a coin or two each to do investigations, they are usually more interested in the coins than the investigation, anything other than maths I suppose. Have also started using modern US 1 cent coins (the ones with the zinc centres) to demonstrate metal reactivity in chemistry, acid will react with the zinc leaving a copper shell. Also let kids investigate the best common household substance for cleaning coins as part of a scientific method investigation, didn't actually tell them that you shouldn't clean collectable coins.