Re: Is it legal to put a hole in a quarter and sell it?

I was recently in San Francisco and used a machine that crunches a penny and makes it a suvenier. I had to insert a penny and also 50 cents to use it. I then turned a crank and the gear mechinism in the machine crunches the penny imprinting it with a scene of Alcatraz, Pier 39, etc. I was wondering, if the the owner of the machine is profiting from the mutilation of the penny, could this be considered illegal under the law?

The mailbag column can be found on-line at this link:
Is it legal to put a hole in a quarter and sell it?

No, he’s just making it into art.

The question is, would it be illegal to try to return this penny to circulation, and use it as a penny?

I think that may be similar to writing on dollar bills. It’s not illegal to write all over a dollar bill, as long as you are not trying to make the dollar look like some different denomination for purposes of passing it off as, say, a $10. Defacing money is trying to make the money look like some other denomination. Scratching out “In God We Trust” or writing “Cthulu was here” are legal.

What about coins? As the article states, I think this was much more critical when coins were made of precious metal. Now that they are symbolic, it’s not so much an issue. So what about that coin with a hole in it, or with the stamp of Alcatraz? Well, if you can get someone to take it as a coin, then okay, but I bet the first bank that gets it will remove it from circulation. You might could use it in a machine if it’s just stamped (a penny machine? nevermind, I’m thinking quarters), but if it has a hole in it the machine might not take it.