On me right now:
Oldest coin: 1962 Jefferson Nickel
Oldest bill: Series 1985 $10 bill
If I dig into my rather unimpressive collection, however, I have these:
Oldest coin: 1939 Jefferson Nickel
Oldest bill: Series 1953 $2 bill
Coin: 25 cents Cayman from 1999
Note: 1 dollar Cayman from 1974
Cayman currency notes feature Queen Elizabeth II. Her portrait is updated every few years resulting in three different portraits in circulation. The 1974 issue features a younger QEII and is rarely encountered.
bill: $20 2006
coin: quarter 1966
I’m sitting here looking at an 1896 Morgan silver dollar.
on my person right now? a $10 and two singles, all “Series 2013.”
on my dresser in the next room? A $5 and a $2, both “Series 1928.” The $5 is in much better condition.
Coin is a 1988 loonie (second year the coin was issued). All the bills I have are Frontier series 20s, so no older than 2012.
A 1955 (British) farthing some generous soul dropped in the tip jar a few months back. It’s been sitting in a jar by my bed with the random selection of foreign coins also donated since.
I’m in England, so farthings aren’t foreign here, just obsolete since well before my birth.
I may have some older coins somewhere in storage, from my brief interest in collecting them as a kid, but I don’t know where they’d be.
Just a few feet away is, among other coins, a U.S. silver dollar from 1799.
Coin - a 1971 penny
Bill - a 2006 $1 bill
On the shelf above my desk - a Roman denarius dated about 75AD.
I have a 1901 penny in my pocket. It’s in crappy shape. Sometimes for laughs I like taking Indian head cents and Buffalo nickels that aren’t worth very much more than face value, and spending them.
The oldest coin I own is a 1797 cent, and the oldest bill I own is a 1880 $10 “jackass” note (there’s an eagle on it, which if you turn upside down, looks like a donkey). My husband has some Confederate fractional currency somewhere.
In my everyday pocket, a 1972 dime. Just as sharp and fresh looking as the newer ones, after 45 years. When I was a kid, 45 year old coins (ca. 1905) were made of silver, and worn down so far you often could not read the date anymore. They didn’t even have pictures of presidents on them yet. But there were still quite a few of them in circulation.
But it begs the question: If coins stand up so well after 45 years, where the hell are all the 45 year old coins? It’s hard to find a quarter anymore with the eagle on the back.
A 1935 $1 silver certificate.
Far as I can tell, I got it as change at the store. I didn’t notice it until I tried to use it in the vending machine at work.
It was absolutely perfectly crisp. So without examining it, I naturally chose it to insert into said machine.
Rejected.
Flip it around, try again.
Rejected.
Huh…try again. As it goes in, I see “Series 1935” and frantically snatch it back.
Turns out it is worth about a dollar. Still neat though, so I folded it in quarters and put it in the side pocket of my wallet. For luck (?) or just something to pull out as a conversation piece now and then.
I figure one of two things happened to get it in to my hands: 1) someone stole grampa’s stash of silver certs, wheat pennies, and buffalo nickels and spent them. 2) someone found that their stash of silver certificates was worth face value and decided not to hold on to them.
No, about half the quarters in circulation have the eagle on the back.
1928 5 dollar bill
It must be a regional thing. I just looked through my laundry stash, from rolls bought at the bank. Seven with the eagle, and 34 with states, parks, etc. That’s 17% with eagle.
A 5 peseta coin, the tiny ones that were in use during the '90s.
Just by a quick look, I’d say just under half of the quarters I have lying around are eagle-backed, the rest mostly state quarters with one or two bicentennials. Oh, and last week in my change from a gas station I got a 1964 silver quarter. That’s a keeper.
Within reach are a silver denarius from Hadrian’s reign, a bronze as from Claudius’s, and a bronze something or other from Marcus Carusius. The denarius was mixed in with pocket change for a while until I remembered to remove it. There’s a couple others scattered on my desk at school.
Buncha European coins from various countries from between the 1890s and 1946 (including a lot of military script) in the box on the shelf next to me, as my dad traded pocket money with other soldiers when he was stationed over here during the War. Came in useful last time I got married, as I needed a silver sixpence for my shoe.
Little tupperwear tub on the shelf with silver quarters and dimes, couple of quarters from the early 19th century, handful of Victorian pennies and sixpence.
My dad hoarded up silver dimes, which he mixed in to a big jar with ordinary dimes, and after he died my mother took the entire jar to the Coinstar machine at her local bank. She complained to the bank tellers that it kept rejecting most of the dimes – well, yeah.