Q: Why the fuss over holed coins?
adamlaneus
Posts: 6,969 ✭✭✭
From what i've read, mainly book about western mining towns in the latter half of the 1800s, holed coins were reviled.
A holed coin was lighter than a "whole" coin. Folks felt that putting a hole in the coin was a way to skim metal off of the coin. Hole about, say, 40 coins and you have one free coin.
There were many different ways of skimming metal from a coin, and holing them was one of those ways.
Gold, back then, was equatable to dollars. A holed gold coin was simply not worth face value. So a merchant would either refuse to take the coin, or take it at a steep discount.
Silver was not quite equatable to dollars, but folks in Nevada felt very strongly about silver coinage. And a holed silver coin was also seen as a 'light weight' fraudulent coin.
What changed?
I can see that now...with the value of the coin so different than the value of the metal...a little hole is not a direct economic concern. It's seen as interesting history.
Was there some event or series of events which changed attitudes towards holed coins?
Or am I just not reading enough books and my whole world view is skewed?
Are these coins jewelry, then? Based on Lord Marcovan's magic hat, it seems that this is one of the callings of the holed coin.
A holed coin was lighter than a "whole" coin. Folks felt that putting a hole in the coin was a way to skim metal off of the coin. Hole about, say, 40 coins and you have one free coin.
There were many different ways of skimming metal from a coin, and holing them was one of those ways.
Gold, back then, was equatable to dollars. A holed gold coin was simply not worth face value. So a merchant would either refuse to take the coin, or take it at a steep discount.
Silver was not quite equatable to dollars, but folks in Nevada felt very strongly about silver coinage. And a holed silver coin was also seen as a 'light weight' fraudulent coin.
What changed?
I can see that now...with the value of the coin so different than the value of the metal...a little hole is not a direct economic concern. It's seen as interesting history.
Was there some event or series of events which changed attitudes towards holed coins?
Or am I just not reading enough books and my whole world view is skewed?
Are these coins jewelry, then? Based on Lord Marcovan's magic hat, it seems that this is one of the callings of the holed coin.
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and thus the need to hole a coin for added metal would seemingly decline.
More holed coins early on due to less coinage in circulation and thus the need for buying power was higher.
Less holed coins later, say mid to late 19th Century, due to more change in circulation, and thus the abundance would have lowered the need to skim metal off of a coin!
Just my take on the situation!
Holed coins were never popular for collectors, with the exception of Lord M! They can be used to obtain a rarity at 10-20% of the price for a problem free coin. I just have a couple, they can be interesting. I have been looking for one with a square hole to hang on my wall with an antique square nail for good luck, as they did 200 years ago. With the holed 1806 I posted about, it is a single usage of a rare obverse die that I would like to study, and $1500 is much easier than $16,750!
I've already got bent coins, a few that I think were cleaned, and one that I think might have been whizzed. (Didn't pay for that one...it was a gift not a five finger discount) I will accept them but not holed.
Yet, I've got this...I mostly just laugh at it though