I’ve got a pile of ‘damaged’ U.S. coins – they’ve been bent, or had holes punched in them, had their markings mostly worn away, been turned strange colors (from encoutering acids or something is my guess), had jewelry mounts soldered to them…
Do these still count as legal currency? As in, if I take them to a bank, would the bank be obliged to accept them as a deposit or exchange them for bills/undamaged coins?
BTW – in the pile was a really strange coin. The front says “United States of America”, but on the back it reads “20 centavos.”
I never knew the U.S. issued money in anything other than ‘cents’ and dollars.
It never has, and the only US 20-cent piece was issued from 1875 to 1878, so I doubt that’s what you have. Maybe it’s a commemorative coin of some sort, or from a US territory?
Well, it sure looks like an ordinary coin to me. I mean, it doesn’t say anything like “20th anniversay of” or have the name of someone or some event or some location or anything like that.
Let’s see if I can describe it better, but the coin is rather worn, so I can’t make out all the details.
It looks to me to be silver. It has a ribbed edge. It’s about 3/4" in diameter.
On the front, around the left-center-right edge it says “United States of America” and at the bottom is the date – 1945, I think, but the ‘4’ part is very faint and it might be something else. In the center there’s an eagle on top of a ovalish shape thingy – can’t make out the details.
On the other size along the top edge it says “twenty centavos” and there’s something written on the bottom that is really faint. The last three letters look like “NAS.” In the center is a woman in flowing drapery holding a hammer (?) with its head resting on an anvil (?) to the left of her. To the right there’s a triangular something…ah, I think it’s supposed to an erupting volcano, there’s something like smoke coming from the peak.
Anyway, it just doesn’t look like any commemorative I’ve seen. Besides the lack of any identification of what it would be commemorating (surely not Women in Blacksmithing?) it’s all worn and dingy, the way ordinary coins get from use.
Is a puzzlement.
If the date on that coin is 1945, might it have been from one of the territories we were temporarily controlling after WWII? I’m thinking the Phillippines, perhaps, since the “centavos” suggests a place with some Spanish heritage.
Definitly a Phillippines occupation coin. They’re pretty common.
Huh. Never knew we minted coins for other countries, even ones we were occupying.
Learn something every day.
Now, about those mangled coins?
Definitely a Philippine 20 centavo, which we made for them from around 1900 until they obtained independence after WWII. Very common, I may have a few hundred accumulated in the coin shop from purchases the last few years. Every GI in the Pacific brought some back as souvenirs.
About mangled coins. I’m doing this off the top of my head and may be wrong. Your local bank is under no obligation to take these coins. I think the US Mint/Treasury will accept damaged coins, but with some restrictions on amount sent(you need a minimum amount).
As I said, I could be wrong about this.
Here’s a cite which would indicate that you are wasting your time trying to send them to the mint as they appear to only give you the scrap value of the metal(which is crap0.
And, about minting coins for other countries, quite common, not just the US Mint but other world mints have done this for more than 100 years. Not every country has/had the technical expertise not the machinery to make their own coins, at least not economically. So you have it done for you.
The US mint struck coins for Belgium and Netherlands during WWII.
But, in those cases they were just hired as manufacturers, right? I mean, I expect the coins didn’t say “United States of America” on them, they said “Republic of Belgium” or whatever.
I was just thrown by the combination of “USA” and a denomination other than cents.
And, thanks for the info on my mangled coins. I’l justl toss them into my metals recycling tub.
No, no, none of those coins are worth anything, especially any that may look like silver or gold. Just send them to me and I’ll dispose of them in my official capacity.
::maniacal laughter and hand rubbing::
Right. We only put our name on coins made for countries we “owned” as territories, etc.
Well, i saw a show some time ago where an elderly woman had a fire in her home. Rather than use the bank to store her cash, she just stuck it in a shoe box in the closet and yep it was burned. But only partially, like some bills were totally burned some only 30% or so. She took this to the bank and there was some kind of “forensics” performed on the ashes and partial bills to determine how much money was in the box. The burned bills were promptly exchanged for new ones.
Yep. They will exchange partially damaged banknotes. But not coins.