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Red cent received in change (1934-D)

WillieBoyd2WillieBoyd2 Posts: 5,250 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited September 8, 2024 7:04PM in U.S. Coin Forum
I received this cent from a grocery store change machine last month (December 2015):

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United States Cent 1934-D

It had been painted red at one time.

I had heard a long time ago that travelling circuses and carnivals would paint pennies

and put them into circulation as a form of advertising.

Has anyone else heard this story?

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Comments

  • CaptHenwayCaptHenway Posts: 32,579 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Around 1976 a Midwestern supermarket chain painted a bunch of current cents red and gave them out in change as part of a "Red Cent Sale" promotion. However, your coin just looks oxidized.

    Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
  • TopographicOceansTopographicOceans Posts: 6,535 ✭✭✭✭
    Red painted quarters are/were used at restaurants in their juke box machines to mark the ones that the business would put in to play music when the jukebox business was dead

    They got those quarters back
  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Interesting.... I have seen red painted coins (quarters, cents and nickels)... never knew

    why.... just thought some kid was screwing around with a coin... Cheers, RickO
  • TwoSides2aCoinTwoSides2aCoin Posts: 44,486 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Originally posted by: ricko
    Interesting.... I have seen red painted coins (quarters, cents and nickels)... never knew
    why.... just thought some kid was screwing around with a coin... Cheers, RickO


    I've been told that vendors (mainly car washes, and laundromats) painted their change with fingernail polish to put in the "change" machines, as a way of "tracking" how much was going back to the business at hand.

    Sounds plausible to me.

  • CaptHenwayCaptHenway Posts: 32,579 ✭✭✭✭✭
    In many major cities the juke boxes in restaurants and bars were operated by the local Mafia. It was a business to them, and to encourage play during slow times the guys that came by and picked up the coins from the machines would give the proprietor a small jar of (typically) quarters with red paint or nail polish on both sides, with the instructions to drop one in the machine and play a song now and then to remind the patrons that the machine was there. The guys collecting the coins would just pull out the ones with the paint on them and put them back in the jar.



    If the take was small and there were few or no marked quarters in the machine the guy emptying the machine would remind the proprietor that he was supposed to be promoting the juke box.
    Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
  • TwoSides2aCoinTwoSides2aCoin Posts: 44,486 ✭✭✭✭✭
    On another note, the red comes off rather simply with acetone.
  • panexpoguypanexpoguy Posts: 1,239 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Painting coins red was also done in casinos. When repairing machines technicians had to run coins through the machine to verify it was repaired but were not allowed access to the coin bucket. They used red painted coins for this and these were taken out in the count room so that they were not counted as profit.
  • oih82w8oih82w8 Posts: 12,484 ✭✭✭✭✭
    "Here are a few of the more plausible answers:



    They’re old test coins. In the past, repairmen used them to check out the coin-operated pay phones, vending machines, and laundromat washers they were fixing in order to avoid being accused of stealing. That sounds plausible to me.



    They were “house” money. Red quarters are sometimes used by business owners as perks; they give them to their preferred customers for free plays on the coin-operated pool tables, pinball machines and video games. Red quarters were also used by waitresses to “prime” otherwise quiet jukeboxes in order to encourage other patrons to add their own quarters and keep the music coming.



    Somebody painted it as a sign of defiance. According to Answers.com, the red coins were part of a campaign in the 1970s to protest New Jersey officials’ decision to increase the toll on the Garden State Parkway from 15 cents to a quarter.



    They were once used for free laundry.For some apartment managers, free laundry is apparently a fringe benefit. Landlords will often give their building supervisors red quarters for use in the apartment laundromats. The managers would get their quarters back when the owner or laundromat vendor removed the cash from the machines."



    http://lenpenzo.com/blog/id192...s-are-painted-red.html







    It might be time to revive this "fad" when we are slow at the...perhaps I have said too much already.
    oih82w8 = Oh I Hate To Wait _defectus patientia_aka...Dr. Defecto - Curator of RMO's

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  • johnny9434johnny9434 Posts: 28,987 ✭✭✭✭✭
    its different.

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