Something completely unexpected in change today

Weiss · October 24, 2005 7:28AM

Would you have accepted it? Would you pass it?

It's a 1965. The hole is very clean, just a little extra dig on the obverse that makes me think it was made with a drill press. Are coins on a string used to dupe pay phones and other vending machines urban myth?

ajc · October 24, 2005 7:34AM

Slot machines

cladking · October 24, 2005 7:35AM

If there's a way to fool a machine then someone will find it. This wouldn't work for
many machines now days but would have in the past.

The wear is pretty extensive on this and appears normal. This would have been a
typical example about fifteen years ago so that might be when it was drillled.

doughmaking · October 24, 2005 7:51AM

You can do that with the washing machines near my house, my buddy is a washing machine tech so he knows all the tricks, but its easier to just use a slug

Conder101 · October 24, 2005 9:45AM

During the early years of the coin operated video game (1980 or so.) their simple coin mechanisms could easily be fooled by the coin on a string trick. (I watched it being done.)

MoneyCollector · October 25, 2005 1:10AM

As an owner of coin-op car washes, I have a little stash of quarters with holes in them. They turn up occasionally (never seen one with string on it though). It is not possible with current coin validators to pull quarters back through but I'm sure at one time it was. Stealing stuff a quarter at a time would be too much work for most crooks - there are so many better (easier) ways to steal from the people that actually work and provide for everyone else in our society!

Conder101 · October 25, 2005 2:40AM

The idea was not to pull the quarter back out, but to bounce it back and forth over the counter so that one quarter was counted as a LOT of quarters.

itsnotjustme · October 25, 2005 3:06AM

For slot machines, once retreiving the coin didn't work, people found ways to mess with the counter of coins being dispensed. I think some of them worked by the dispensed coin blocking a light beam as it dropped. People found they could feed an item up the chute to block the light continuosly so many coins fell but only got counted once.

BuffaloIronTail · October 25, 2005 5:40AM

Back in my "wild days" in the 1970's, there was a truck stop I hung out at with my friends. We played the early video games and pinball.

The owner knew us, and was used to us hangin' around.

We used the quarter trick on the pinball machine. We fastened string to the coin and inserted it.

It didn't work. The quarter got eaten.............

About a week later the owner came in the back with the string and quarter.

He kept dangling it in front of us, and didn't say a word. We kept our mouths shut...........

and never tried it again.

OH MY..............youth.

Pete

Something completely unexpected in change today

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