# I got a George V nickel int change today!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [September 7, 2012, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931 "2012-09-07T00:33:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/1 "2012-09-07T00:33:49Z")
From 1929, in fact. The tails is a pair of maple leaves, framing “Five 5 Cents” - not bilingual.
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### Author:  [@cynyc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cynyc)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/2 "2012-09-07T00:42:16Z")
Very cool!
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/3 "2012-09-07T02:39:40Z")
That really is interesting!
Sometimes, here in the US, I still get “wheat ear” pennies, which were discontinues in the 1950’s. But that’s a seldom thing.
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/4 "2012-09-07T02:41:15Z")
That’s fantastic, Northern Piper! I think the old Queen Elizabeth pennies with the ribbons in her hair are cool enough to begin with, and I squee if I get so much as a George VI.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/5 "2012-09-07T03:52:35Z")
I got a George VI penny a month or so ago, which happens maybe once a year. I’m really surprised to see a coin from 1929 in regular circulation - where has it been all these years?
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/6 "2012-09-07T03:54:58Z")
\*\* Matt\*\*, do you have any idea what the symbolism of the ribbons in the early QEII coins is? Is it meant to be a Roman-Greek Classical look?
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/7 "2012-09-07T03:58:46Z")
> [@Baker](#):
>
> Sometimes, here in the US, I still get “wheat ear” pennies, which were discontinues in the 1950’s. But that’s a seldom thing.
I still get a wheat cent about once every 12-18 months. I put them in my oddball coins bin.
> [@matt\_mcl](#):
>
> That’s fantastic, Northern Piper! I think the old Queen Elizabeth pennies with the ribbons in her hair are cool enough to begin with, and I squee if I get so much as a George VI.
I’ve heard that the profile alternates facing left or right with each change of monarch, or is that only English coins?
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### Author:  [@anya\_marie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anya_marie)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/8 "2012-09-07T04:37:55Z")
I’ve found a few of those early QEII Canadian pennies but not anything as cool as a 1929 nickel lately, so I’m coveting Northern Piper’s find a bit.
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/9 "2012-09-07T06:48:10Z")
A shame we Brits decimalised in 1971 and resized the 5p and 10p in 1991. Until the latter, old shillings and two-shillings were interchangeable with 5p and 10p coins. Really old silver was out of circulation, though, because it contained real silver. Pre 1971, you could occasionally see old pennies from Edward VII or even the late years of Victoria; I certainly saw at least one 1896 Victoria penny, worn almost smooth.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/10 "2012-09-07T12:55:27Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> I still get a wheat cent about once every 12-18 months. I put them in my oddball coins bin.
>
> I’ve heard that the profile alternates facing left or right with each change of monarch, or is that only English coins?
Yes, we follow the same pattern:
- My George V coin has him facing left.
- Edward VIII would have faced right, but Canada didn’t have time to mint any before he abdicated (although I think **Polycarp** posted a link awhile ago that suggested that Edward wanted to face left too, out of his personal vanity).
- George VI also faces left, even though there were never any Edward coins.
- All of our coins of Elizabeth II face right.
Here’s what my George V nickle looks like: [link](http://www.jandm.com/script/getitem.asp?CID=3&PID=85).
I wonder what crown it is that he’s wearing?
I see I was wrong is saying it wasn’t bilingual. English on the tails, Latin on the heads.
One of the interesting things about the Elizabeth coins is that the image has been [regularly updated](http://www.jandm.com/script/getitem.asp?CID=3&PID=87), so the series starts with her as a young woman (the one with ribbons **Matt** mentions) and progresses along as she’s aged, to her current matronly image.
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### Author:  [@Dr\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Doom)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/11 "2012-09-07T13:00:03Z")
Nice. I usually feel lucky just to have found a Mountie. I don’t save them, though.
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### Author:  [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/12 "2012-09-07T13:07:59Z")
That’s a beautiful coin. I don’t know what it is about old coins but there’s just a special charm to them that’s hardly found in anything minted today. I could spend hours going through my paltry collection and days in a real store. They were just often prettier with more ‘romantic’ themes before, royalty, indians, exotic or iconic animals like the buffalo, etc. Part of it is probably because of the interest in them my grandmom first shared with me. Then there’s the wondering about what history each has had, who held them, hoarded them, purchased what dire staples with them or maybe even fought over them.
If only walls _and_ old coins could talk.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/13 "2012-09-07T13:19:14Z")
> [@lieu](#):
>
> Then there’s the wondering about what history each has had, **who held them, hoarded them** , purchased what dire staples with them or maybe **even fought over them**.
Dwarves.
Dwarves and dragons.
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### Author:  [@cynyc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cynyc)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/14 "2012-09-07T19:01:54Z")
Yeah, I get worked up over a simple wheatie too.
There are people who go to banks and somehow get boxfuls of “silver” coins and search them for the rare true silver coin.
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### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/15 "2012-09-07T20:26:30Z")
I once got an 1870 Indian head penny in my change, and also a 1938 buffalo nickel.
Needless to say, I have not re-spent them.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/16 "2012-09-07T22:55:29Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> I wonder what crown it is that he’s wearing?
I think it’s a fictional crown modeled off of the “Tudor crown” that was used in heraldry at the time. The crowned effigies of George VI and Elizabeth II\* also used a similar crown.
\*Neither were used in Canada, which was “promoted” to the uncrowned portrait when the [unissued Edward VIII portraits](http://www.glenbow.org/images/img-col-ch-sp-hig-5.jpg) were being designed. The division between Commonwealth countries and non-self-governing entities persisted into the 1960s, when the Queen said she was fine with all coins using the new version originally prepared for decimal coins (I believe there was a little embarrassment when the first country to introduce it was Rhodesia).
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2012, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/17 "2012-09-08T11:49:43Z")
> [@lieu](#):
>
> …Part of it is probably because of the interest in them my grandmom first shared with me. Then there’s the wondering about what history each has had, who held them, hoarded them, purchased what dire staples with them or maybe even fought over them.
>
> If only walls _and_ old coins could talk.
I got a US cent from the Twenties a while back. I wondered whether it had ever been spent in a speakeasy. One can also wonder to what extent it was circulated in the intervening decades, perhaps spending part of the Great Depression in a bank reserve vault, then given out as part of a family’s first real paycheck in years, used to buy a train ticket to the city, then spending a few years circulating around a WW2 munitions factory in Pittsburgh, then taken on a road trip and spent in Disneyland, then circulating for a while around the LA metro area, then taken and spent on the East Coast by a West Coast tourist, then given to me in change.
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### Author:  [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/18 "2012-09-08T14:44:59Z")
The oldest coin I’ve ever gotten in my change was a 1900 Newfoundland 20-cent piece that someone substituted for a quarter (it’s _very_ slightly smaller). It has a very young Victoria on the face - no updating here! I also have some 1940s Canadian and Newfoundland pennies, with a crowned George VI on the Newfoundland ones in place of the uncrowned portrait on the Canadian coins.
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### Author:  [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2012, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/19 "2012-09-09T10:21:11Z")
I get all happy about “funny nickles” the 12 sided ones. I usually find about one a year, and if its been a while I get kind of sad about it. My son is pretty interested in coins and coin collecting right now, I am kind of bummed I didnt get a chance to take him to the Winnipeg Mint this year.
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2012, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-george-v-nickel-int-change-today/633931/20 "2012-09-09T13:32:18Z")
> [@Bookkeeper](#):
>
> The oldest coin I’ve ever gotten in my change was a 1900 Newfoundland 20-cent piece that someone substituted for a quarter (it’s _very_ slightly smaller). It has a very young Victoria on the face - no updating here! I also have some 1940s Canadian and Newfoundland pennies, with a crowned George VI on the Newfoundland ones in place of the uncrowned portrait on the Canadian coins.
I’d think having a 1900 20-cent piece as a curiosity was well worth a quarter in today’s money. 🆒
> [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](#):
>
> I get all happy about “funny nickles” the 12 sided ones. I usually find about one a year, and if its been a while I get kind of sad about it. My son is pretty interested in coins and coin collecting right now, I am kind of bummed I didnt get a chance to take him to the Winnipeg Mint this year.
And now I’m nostalgic for the old 3d coin, which was also dodecagonal and about the size and weight of the modern £1 coin, and seems to match it more closely in buying power with every year that passes. Or even outmatches it depending on the standard you measure by; I’m sure you could get _The Beano_ for 3d some time during my life, and it’s now £1.50 IIRC.
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