Sure I’ve found a couple of silver coins (pre-1964 US) in my change over the years but today I found a 1911 V nickel. It is pretty worn so I have not retired yet. The only other time I found a really weird coin was a UK tuppence years ago.
What weird/unexpected coins have found their way into your pocket?
I don’t think I’ve ever found anything more interesting than a few 1940s-50s wheat pennies.
A couple of pre-1965(?) (whenever they stopped making them with silver) quarters and dimes, that’s it.
I found a Canadian dime in the CoinStar return tray recently. I added it to the other Canadian dimes and quarters stuck to a magnet on my refrigerator.
I once picked up a penny in a parking lot. It turned out to be a 1914-D, one of the key Lincoln Cents. I had it certified and sold it on eBay for several hundred dollars.
Back when I was manning a register at Safeway I ran across a lot of wheat pennies and exactly 2 1943 steel wheat pennies. No letters or anything special, they were “common” ones worth only a few cents, but it was still cool to see.
Within a week’s time this year, I received two 1945 nickels in change. These war nickels (1942-1945) were manufactured with 35% silver, the only nickels to ever contain silver (to my knowledge).
Back when I worked for Wendy’s, a drive-thru customer paid for his order with a Krugerrand. The cashier accepted it as a silver dollar. I bought it out of the till and kept it until it was stolen from me several years ago.
My brother once found a 19th century silver “half dime” embedded in the woodwork of our house. A coin dealer offered him a nickel for it. It was half the size of a dime.
Was your house built when half-dimes were still in use?
I know age isn’t everything when it comes to coins, but I’m astonished that the coin dealer offered only a nickel for it.
I once got a “Mercury” dime in change, and another time I found a $20 bill (Federal Reserve Note) from the 1950s lying on the ground. It looked just as the more recent ones looked through the mid-1990s, but still had the language “Will Pay To The Bearer On Demand” below Andrew Jackson’s portrait.
That’s it as concerns the old coins and currency I have found.
Somewhere in my collection of miscellaneous old and foriegn coins, I have an indian head penny. I very much doubt it’s worth anything as it is in extremely rough condition. I think the date says 1901 but I’m not really sure as it is difficult to make out due to all the scratches
Wendy’s gave me a Mercury dime in my change a few weeks ago. Otherwise, just a wheat penny now and again.
I think it was a 1 Franc Coin in place of a nickel (it was about the size of one, so I didn’t even notice the difference until I got home). This was probably about a year ago, so France had been on the Euro for quite a few years.
I once got a 1907 nickel in my change, and I found a 1940 dime in a pay phone return slot.
I’m a store cashier, and someone once gave me a 1937 silver certificate five dollar bill. I replaced it with a regular bill, and still have it.
I was looking through the attic the other day and found a stack of $20 gold certificate bills and a handwritten note saying something about “the baby can be found on boad Nellie”.
Do these items have any collector value?
I was working as GM at a Panera Bread in St Louis (St Louis Bread Co here)…
A cash drawer needed quarters…I got a roll out of the safe. A paper “hand rolled” roll, not the new shrink wrap plastic. I guess the bank had taken them from a customer. When i opened them into the drawer i heard the distinct sound of silver, why yes it sounds MUCH different than modern coins a very tinny note. The entire roll was 64 and earlier quarters. I put a 10$ bill in the drawer and harvested the coins…made about 270$ off the 10$ investment.
My best guess is they were stolen from a collector and cashed in at bank for face value.
When handling change, keep your ears open.
Oh, hell yes!
You should have them checked out, especially if they are from the small-sized 1934 series.
Can you upload a picture somewhere and link to it?
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I think you may have been whooshed.
Planned for National Coin Week in late April 2019, the Great American Coin Hunt is a plan for hundreds of coin dealers and collectors to drop over one million vintage and collectible coins back into circulation. The idea is to spark interest in numismatics to a brand new demographic. From old buffalo nickels, silver mercury dimes to Ike dollars, silver certificates, five and 10 dollar blue and red seals will be spent at restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores from April 21-27, 2019. Many coins from the 1800s will also be spent as regular money.
I worked in a bowling alley back between '86-'90 or thereabouts. We had a grill and some arcade machines and kids frequented the place in the afternoon. Over the period of a week or two, I found several silver dimes and quarters in the till, so I swapped them for new coins from my pocket. Later, I got a 1923 Mellon $20 bill. I figure these things went missing from some parent’s collection!