If You See a Penny.....
Onastone
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If you see a penny on the ground, do you pick it up? I still do but I've seen the younger generation pass them by and say things like, "It's just a penny!"
What does it take to change that attitude? Two pennies? A nickel? A quarter?
Do you care if it's "heads up" ? Isn't it good luck to find money any side up?
I have a feeling that almost everyone here would pick up any coinage on the ground.
One of my friends would take his pocket change and drop it outside of a classroom door, when the bell rang and students were trying to get out to get to their next class, there would be a few kids stopping in the doorway picking up the change, blocking everybody.
Okay, I do draw the line though.....seen some coins in a urinal, those I leave behind.
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I find and pick up multiple coins every single day, found an Ike Dollar on the pavement outside Dunkin Donuts, manager probably thought it was play money and tossed it?
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I pick up any coins I see on the ground/floor/coinstar.....I do not pick up urinal coins...
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If I find any change on the ground, I'll pick it up...if my daughter does not beat me to it.
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My mother was a custodian at the high school I attended. At the end of the summer she would bring me the far from her locker full of all the cents she picked up and that was how I filled my blue Whitman folders. Thus I pick up coins when ever I can.
WS
A friend glues them down in conspicuous places. I think he is making funny videos.
I still pick them up, but will no longer do anything too embarrassing to get one. I am simply too old, fat and tippy. I do understand the kids who won't bother with them - at best a nickel today won't buy what a penny would buy when I was a kid. And a single nickel won't buy squat either.
Both my wife and myself pick up change, years ago my wife was walking out of the store and picked up a couple pennies, 3 young boys laughed at her. As she was getting in her car ( new corvette ) they said NICE CAR, she told them I got it from picking up pennies. True story
Yea I pick them up but I do draw a line at picking up pissed on coins.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
Yes, but more for good luck and waste not - want not reasoning than any hopes of a numismatic find.
Note the word ground. Urinals and other unsavory locations are definitely not the ground.
If we were all the same, the world would be an incredibly boring place.
Tommy
Is linoleum flooring 'ground'?
Is asphalted parking lot "ground"? Does it make a difference if the asphalt is new or old?
One certainly wishes to avoid being considered 'unsavory'.
My Dad's favorite saying
" If you watch the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves."
I promised God some years back if he would favor me with an immediate need I would be a good steward of every penny. He fulfilled his end of the bargain within minutes and to this day, If I see a penny on the ground, I'll pick it up, and I'm not embarrassed about it. I'm 72 and own everything I have, and I have no bills or debt at all. I can't bend over and pick them up now so I get down on my knees and every time I do I am reminded of My promise.
Bob Sr CEO Fieldtechs
I pick them all up (except urinal money).
I always check the CoinStar reject slot.
I also check vending machine coin return slots if no one is looking. (Would do the same for payphones if there were any around any more).
Just last week I found 90 cents in a snack machine at work - someone had obviously put in $2 and forgot to take their change.
I pick up most I find. I sometimes spot them when bicycling, but skip it if am going too fast or it is not safe to stop and get them. (Joe Boling once did a great exhibit of coins he found while cycling.) After I have collected a dollar I buy a lottery ticket.
Someone has to get those urinal coins out of there eventually. I'm sure janitors have stories - how do you know the coin you just received in change wasn't once in such a predicament?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3067274/
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2013/10/why-coins-are-copper.html
Pacific Northwest Numismatic Association
Sometimes I'll skip pennies, but nickels and up are fair game!
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I always pick pennies when it deemed safe
A penny short they wouldn't give me my McNuggets 
Sometimes I am a little leery of dollar bills and two dollar bills, wondering if they ever spent any time in a strip joint.
i still pick up the lonely cent/penny and toss it into a jar. when that fills up i cash it in for about $3.
I always pick up change off the "ground".
Should I mention I picked up a 1909 VDB out of a urinal... no I won’t.
I pick them up, they add up in time. And no tax on them.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
This past week did pick up a cent on the ground and a nickel off the casino floor. Had some luck finding cents/quarters on the casino floor as well. And by the change machine there too or in the change tray. I was told technically any $ laying on the casino floor belongs to the casino. So far the "gendarmes" have not "run me in". But will put all that change into the "bail me out" jar just in case
. When I cash out my betting voucher I always leave .99 cents due to me on the voucher so I can get .99 cents in change back when I cash out. Received 2 war nicks this way so far. Also received some Star note currency in change.
I actually found a quarter on the ground last Friday.
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A few months ago I was walking out of a convenience store and saw two dimes in the holes of the floor mat.
I couldn't get them, so I picked up the mat, and retrieved them.
Once was a silver Roosie
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Picked up two today.
DPOTD-3
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Don
I do pick up any money I see laying around, have found wheats on the floor of a store, a 1964 quarter in front of the coinstar machine etc.
When I lived overseas we had some coins locally that were then worth about 6-7 to the cent, they littered the streets, floors of stores etc. Out of habit I picked them up and accumulated quite a bit - subsequently the local currency lost most of it's value but the coins are still worth the scrap steel value!
Yes me too!! Once when I was a teenager, I checked the payphone and it was full of quarters!!!!!!!!! That was a windfall back then!
I thought of that too, it's true, if it's spent right away, it ends up in a cashier's drawer and handed out in change. Please don't tell me where my money has been. I like to think its all clean.
Okay, this is something I've never thought about. Good point.
One of my favorite spots to find loose change on the ground is at the Country Fair. People lose so much change there digging into their pockets for tickets...and under some of the rides that turn people upside down....their change just falls out like in a cartoon!!!!!!
OK - here is an old timer story. I hope you enjoy it.
Back in the mid-60's when I was in junior high in Wisconsin, I used to buy a half pint of milk at the cafeteria every day for 3 cents to go with my bag lunch. Sometimes, I'd get two. Chocolate was my favorite.
Anyway, that meant that I always had a couple of pennies in my pocket and most of my classmates did as well.
Our monitor for the period was Mr. Marker - an Industrial arts teacher.
He used to walk around all the tables to insure we all stayed in line. But somewhere along the line, somebody figured out that Mr. Marker would stoop to retrieve a penny. That signaled that kids would roll a penny across the tiled floor to cause a diversion or simply to enjoy the show.
Pennies rolled for months. By the end of the year, Mr. Marker took the stage and the microphone. He announced that he was the proud owner of an new watch (presumably the Timex that takes a licking but keeps on ticking) paid for by all our cent donations.
We all laughed. He earned it.
Edited to add: Back then, a Timex retailed for about $10.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
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Good for him!
The funny thing is, I am sure you can get a watch (not a Timex) for about the same today.....
I find no problems in picking them up !!!
I pick them up.
Yes, I pick up all change no matter how small the denomination.
Donato
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I like the ones that have been on the street for a long time.
All of them are very rare Cherry Pickers doubling and other RARE errors.
Amazing how EVERY ONE run over about 2000 times is a RARE RARE Coin.
Even more errors after I run them through the dryer.
Once I kept all the change I found on the ground in a separate jar for exactly one year just to see how much I was finding. It came to just over $28.
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Received a 47-P Jeff. Nickel in change today. It had a dark grey hue to it and slightly dirty warnick feel to it. At first thought it was a warnick.
.seen some coins in a urinal, those I leave behind.
Out of curiosity, not that this is a real moment, but what if you saw a St. Gaudens in a urinal? Would you pick it up?
Of course I'd pick it up! I've changed thousands of diapers and picked up a ton of dog poop from the yard so it wouldn't be that big of a deal.
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
You would have to up the ante.....change the parameters.....bring up gold....gulp....where's my glove? What does hand sanitizer do to a coins surface? Hmmmmm. Now you have me wondering the turning point here, How high of a denomination does a coin have to be to make you pick it up....
St. Gaudens? Of course yes. Now just pray it isn't counterfeit!!
I like picking them up and then taking bad photos of them so I can post them here to ask if they are double die.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
Actually, picking up coins off the ground is good exercise.
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
We calculated one time if Bill Gates was paid by the hour, and worked 50 hours a week, and was walking down the street and saw a $100 bill on the ground in his office, and it took 1 second to pick it up, but he was not paid for the 1 second, he would lose money.
Perhaps when he started out it was rather different, but I do not think you can define what Bill Gates does as "work" in a sense that most people would understand.
i always pick up pennies from the ground, as you never know what that penny could be
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Laying on the ground? Always.