# I found a 100 won korean coin in my quarters, is that a scam **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 25, 2014, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562 "2014-03-25T23:22:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/41 "2014-03-26T19:22:51Z")
Even if it’s not an organized scam, it doesn’t mean it isn’t done on purpose. When I was in high school, there was a British coin of lower value that was accepted by vending machines and more importantly pinball machines (can’t remember what coin). It was known and young people visiting the UK made sure to bring back a lot of these coins. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/42 "2014-03-26T19:37:16Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Even if it’s not an organized scam, it doesn’t mean it isn’t done on purpose. When I was in high school, there was a British coin of lower value that was accepted by vending machines and more importantly pinball machines (can’t remember what coin). It was known and young people visiting the UK made sure to bring back a lot of these coins. I had a high school teacher from the Philippines who claimed that a certain Filipino coin would register as a U.S. coin (I forget which denomination) in the toll-baskets of the Illinois Tollway. He [del]claimed[/del] admitted in class that he would bring back rolls of them and pay his tolls with them. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![HipGnosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/76d3ee/32.png) [@HipGnosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HipGnosis)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/43 "2014-03-26T20:08:46Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > That’s awesome. Can I have it? I’ll pay you 25¢ for it. 😉 take the deal Google says 100 wan = $0.093 USD ---
**Author:** ![mcott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@mcott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcott)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/44 "2014-03-26T20:45:20Z")
> [@Canadjun](#): > > Many years ago (so they may have twiddled the weights and dimensions since) I discovered that the UK 5p coin was quite an effective substitute for the Canadian 25 cent coin in most vending machines I tried it in in Canada (needless to say there wouldn’t be much point in using a 25 cent coin instead of a 5p in a UK vending machine). > > Was it a scam? Yes, I guess so. I might have ripped off the poor vending machine man for a couple of bucks (I had been on a trip to the UK; that’s why I had UK coins in the first place). Do I think I was a major criminal? No. I’ll do you one better. Back in '89 I spent a month in France on a student exchange. I was told before I went over that a piece de 20 centimes (a fifth of a Franc) was the same size and weight as a Canadian quarter. With the exchange rate at five to one Franc to Dollar, that made 25 pieces de 20 centimes per dollar. I brought back around 500 of the things. Again, scam yes (parking meters, vending machines), major criminal no. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/45 "2014-03-26T22:31:03Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Just a nitpick but the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Banks of the Isle of Man and the Chanel Islands still issue £1 notes, at least in theory. How do you issue money “in theory”? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/46 "2014-03-27T01:13:04Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > What, you’ve never gotten Canadian coins ever? I’ve seen it happen all the time. We take Canadian coins in southeastern Michigan. Can you not use Canadian small coins in all of America? ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/47 "2014-03-27T01:48:30Z")
I LIKE getting foreign coins in my change. One time a cashier noticed that she was about to give me one (a Jamaican dime or something), apologized, and was about to swap it out. I told her, no, I’d like to have it. We keep a dish full of assorted “funny money,” for amusement. A year or so ago, on my daily run, I found a Canadian $10 bill by the side of the road. A country road in central Wisconsin. It was slightly chewed but would still be spendable. How do you suppose THAT happened?? ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/48 "2014-03-27T03:41:24Z")
One time I went to a fast food restaurant in Canada and as I was leaving I realised that they gave me some South American coin instead of a quarter. I went back and insisted that they give me a quarter instead. Later that day, I looked up the exchange rate and I found out the coin I returned was actually worth about 35 cents in Canadian money. ---
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/49 "2014-03-27T05:22:15Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > I swear, the Kiwis are trying to take us over, one 20c piece at a time! > > Bustards. > > 😃 Also Fiji. ---
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/50 "2014-03-27T05:47:26Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > The last major oddity I remember in my change was a token for the Fun Spot Arcade which looks suspiciously like a quarter but appears to be made of plastic. At work the one time, we had a bank sealed roll of quaters that had 2 quater sized washers in it. _That_ was a scam. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/51 "2014-03-27T06:26:06Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I came home from South America once and found that a Colombian coin (worth about a dime) made Canadian vending machines think it was a quarter. But it would not have fooled an American slot. Which one? [The one in the middle or the one on the right?](http://s28.postimg.org/m0224lvml/Colombia_pesos.jpg) (The one on the right is the newer version.) I have a lot of both of these, and twice I’ve accidentally put them in machines which just ignore them. However, I have gotten a cashier at Starbucks to accept one, saying, “Well, your coffee is Colombian, right? So just pay for it with this next time.” She appreciated the jest. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/52 "2014-03-27T08:26:05Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > I LIKE getting foreign coins in my change. One time a cashier noticed that she was about to give me one (a Jamaican dime or something), apologized, and was about to swap it out. I told her, no, I’d like to have it. We keep a dish full of assorted “funny money,” for amusement. Me too - I’ve got a tin filled with hundreds of different foreign and defunct coins and tokens. I sometimes check the floor around CoinStar machines too - as many people just discard any reject coins. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/53 "2014-03-28T06:14:06Z")
> [@jabiru](#): > > It’s a rare day that I don’t find one NZ coin in my purse. I also get the occasional dime (or do I mean nickel??). It’s never crossed my mind that this could be a scam. There used to be more of them, back when NZ and Australian 5, 10 and 20c coins were the same size and weight. People found good use for the coins in parking meters - NZ currency was worth about 20% less than Australian so apparently it was one way of sticking it to The Man or something. Australian 10c and 20c pieces were so common when I was growing up in NZ that people just accepted them as currency for the most part. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/54 "2014-03-28T07:33:37Z")
I assume this is not an organized scam, but rather people who don’t really look at their change (which is nearly everybody) and had occasion to makes some purchases in a foreign land. I work as a cashier in a metropolitan region that includes the largest naval base in the world, so I’ve seen dozens of quarter-sized coins from all over the world. Mostly quarters, but not exclusively: a 0.02 euro coin is about the size of a nickle, but is copper like a penny. I have gotten them in rolls of either. Now, it is possible that the governments in question made their coins the same size as US coins in the hopes they’d be mistaken for them, but I have trouble with the intervening steps between that and “Profit”. Far more likely is that it is easy to get vending machines that take coins that size, so that’s the size they made their coins. If anybody wants a coin about the size of a quarter from the United Arab Emirates, they are all over the place around here. A box of $500 in quarters should contain at least 2. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/55 "2014-03-28T07:41:10Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Australian 10c and 20c pieces were so common when I was growing up in NZ that people just accepted them as currency for the most part. When I was a child in Connecticut in the 1970s, everybody knew that Canadian money was worth less than US money, but nobody really cared. Sometimes a store would refuse to take a Canadian coin. And on a trip to Canada, my stepfather (who loved to haggle) would often see if he could get a price reduced at a hotel or restaurant since he was paying in US currency. A few years ago (10?), there was a hiccup where Canadian money was suddenly worth A LOT less than US money, and I recall that the toll booths on the New Jersey Turnpike put up BIG signs explaining that Canadian coins would NOT be taken as equivalent to US, and listing the current exchange rate (which was about 50%, IIRC). ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/56 "2014-03-28T07:46:35Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Today I found a [100 won south korean coin](http://api.ning.com/files/TlKVFxO8yWruSZvcaBQBQGLvuAgJcPPA-x1AGopTEK*JVAXJ1J*yrfmy-hg-gwnrJpGdjqpJEUW6Uu8txOc5cBfQI*-JB4Lg/SOUTHKOREA1991100WONCOIN.jpg?width=605) in with my quarters. Thank You! I’ve wondered just which country those were from, and oddly had never guessed Korea. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/57 "2014-03-28T07:52:18Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > The last major oddity I remember in my change was a token for the Fun Spot Arcade which looks suspiciously like a quarter but appears to be made of plastic. Chuck E. Cheese’s uses tokens that are the size of a quarter, as do Namco arcades. Perhaps the rarest coin I have ever gotten in my cash drawer was a _vintage_Chuck E. Cheese’s token: they change them ever few years, and this one had a date and was from the 1980’s, IIRC the year the chain opened. Sold it to a customer who worked for them for a quarter. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/58 "2014-03-28T10:50:39Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Can you not use Canadian small coins in all of America? In my experience, the further from the border, the more picky. As in Michigan, Massachusetts has quite a bit of Canadian coins in circulation and nobody cares, but in Denver it was a different story. ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/59 "2014-03-28T13:01:34Z")
> [@dogbutler](#): > > At work the one time, we had a bank sealed roll of quaters that had 2 quater sized washers in it. _That_ was a scam. Way back when, my dad managed a store that had an old school soda machine - one of the chest type ones that dispensed bottles of soda for a quarter. Customers paid cash. Employees had a small dish of quarter sized washers. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562/60 "2014-03-28T18:33:28Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > In my experience, the further from the border, the more picky. As in Michigan, Massachusetts has quite a bit of Canadian coins in circulation and nobody cares, but in Denver it was a different story. Once, when I lived in Redondo Beach (some 15 miles south of downtown Los Angeles) I got a Canadian quarter in my change. I couldn’t GIVE it away! I finally had to go back to ther store where I got it to exchange it for an American quarter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-found-a-100-won-korean-coin-in-my-quarters-is-that-a-scam/684562.md?page=4)