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Anyone as a kid do this?
CoinCrazyPA
Posts: 2,899 ✭✭✭✭
Put a penny on the train tracks waiting for the train to flatten it? I did it up to a nickel. Growing up in Detroit there were plenty of train tracks thanks to the big three. Anyone ever try a halve dollar?
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I did a penny and a dime and got an 11c piece.
I didn't live near any RR tracks so I never had the opportunity , BUT I did burn ants with a magnifying glass.
Sure, penny, nickel, dime and quarters. No halves. Had to put lots on the tracks as vibration made many of them fall off.
Your right It usually took several tries. Anyone still have one?
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Never as a kid, but had tracks near work in my late 30s. Squished many coins, found several, the rest flew who knows where.
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I had plenty of opportunities to put coins on the railroad tracks as I walked one of the freight line tracks daily as a shortcut to my Junior High School, to the local movie theater and to work up until about 25 years ago. I never did it, but now I wish I had just to see the results.
Donato
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My best "Railroad Rim!"
Good thing your “railroad rim” was not an 1893-S! An 1893-P was generous enough!
Where were you in Detroit? I grew up in Redford, but for 9th grade went to U of D High and had to change DSR busses at Plymouth and Wyoming. There was a diagonal train line that ran right behind the bus stop and I mashed a few cents while waiting for a bus.
I know, right. The date position is correct however the rabbits ears are gonzo and the mint mark on both S rev dies is shifted right a little so I should still be able to barely see the top serif, which I don't :'(
But even a 93p is worthy of not putting on a RR track so this had to be done somewhat contemporaneously around the turn of the century I would think..
If it was done at the turn of the last century, that was a pretty generous sacrifice to the railroad, close to a day’s wages for many people.
I grew up four houses from the Detroit city airport, Off of French road. Basically 12 blocks south of Six mile and Vandyke.
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They have gone somewhere over the years. They normally squashed flat and into an oval shape. Found a rail road penny recently metal detecting. If you do one now use a pre 82 cent.
I've done that!
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I used to lay rows of them on the tracks at Knotts Berry Farm amusement park! Then you’d get on the train and when the “robbers” came through, you threw a few more pennies at them!
Collector of randomness. Photographer at PCGS. Lover of Harry Potter.
Yes, I did this a dozen times in the early '60s. Suburban NY.
After placing our coins on the track my friends and I would then shimmy into a small, cracked, wet drainage tunnel under the tracks and wait for the train to roar past above us. Afterwards it was time to scrounge around to find our flattened Lincolns. Such fun!
I'm bummed I never saved any. But happy I survived such foolish stupidity.
Lance.
This one deserves to be slabbed - I'd love to know the "details" grade! (And how it would fit into a holder.)
We used to epoxy dimes to the sidewalk. We were cruel kids.
Nope, never did, very few trains in Hawaii !!!
I've seen pics of coins flattened by famous trains with the coin put in a annotated envelope to preserve it. As an example, a flattened 1865 cent with the envelope having a note written on it "Cent flattened by the Abraham Lincoln funeral train" with the date of the event also written on the envelope. This was a popular and inexpensive souvenir of a memorable event.
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Of course. And I still do it whenever I get the chance
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Epoxy would have dissolved as the mercury rose.
we did pennies and then hopped the train for a ride to the HOBO Jungle
It's a good thing you are NOT a Supreme Court nominee
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I think you meant "NOT".
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I've put lots of stuff on the tracks as a kid just to see what would happen. Unfortunately I didn't save any of my flattened coins.
I have some cents and nickels that were flattened by the SP 4-8-4 "Daylight" when she was making runs in the 1980s.
I put a number of cents on the tracks in the 50's after the train passed the cent was hot to touch. I am also ashamed to admit that I also threw rocks at the transits on the train. I do not know if I ever hit someone. The transits would sometimes come to the door asking for food and my mother would always give them food.
Yep, back in the early 70's my cousins and I use to hang out at the local bowling alley, the train track was located right behind the building. Anytime the train passed by, you had a pretty good chance of making a strike.
No my mom would tell me it would make the train flip over so no I did not my mom would not lie to me.
Hoard the keys.
i did cents/pennies and some nickels. there was a track behind my grandmothers where i did that. she got pissed when she found out i was back there and got a few tannings to with it. ahhh, the memories
I can say one thing for certain. Those coins were not EASY to find after the train ran over them.
We lost more than we got back. DAMN but them coins go flying.
Yes, we did put cents on the tracks...often they 'disappeared'. I did not save any. Never put larger coins on the tracks, the larger coins could buy good stuff like soda or candy
Cheers, RickO
I ...really.... wanted to put "Billy the Bully" on the tracks in the 5th grade.
Statue of Limitations is LONG PAST as to what we put on a the rails in a train yard.
Note: NO living or previously living thing.
I tried this with a coin on my HO train set and nothing really happened.
On the other hand, Hawaii does have interstate highways!
https://fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/hawaii.cfm
Money was way too tight for me to waste but I did it once with quarter, dime, nickel, cent and could only locate the nickel and cent. The rest vanished.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
I remember reading that there were lots of coins on the tracks of the 1968 Robert Kennedy funeral train which went from New York to Washington DC. People could hear the coins being crunched.
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I was witness to a few, but think I probably didn't have coins to put on the tracks myself.
I have a couple in my collection acquired somewhere over the years -
I suppose the Indian could have been under the McKinley train or similar, but I guess we'll never know
Pacific Northwest Numismatic Association
There was a train that slowly crossed over a boulevard near
us in Glendale. On our way to the picture show my friend & I
would stop and lay pennies on the track and come back after
the show to collect them. We would sell em to kids at school
the next day for two cents each. The show cost 25c & the
candy was a nickel. Don't tell anybody we did that !
R.I.P. Bear
I just smashed some zincolns last December. We booked a murder mystery train out of Fort Myers and couldn't resist. I still have the flatten cents somewhere.
This does happen. We used to stack a few different coins and often they would fuse together!