I've found two 1971 half dollars with what appears to be red dye on them. One I got from some rolls from the federal reserve and one from cwr rolls.... Are they worth anything? Anyone know why these have red dye?
They are worth at least 50 cents each and they got dye on them because someone painted them or they got natural red colored toning over the years. For more information upload quality photos of your coins.
Going by what you say, and only by what you say, it sounds like PMD, meaning someone put the dye, or possibly nail color, on the coins from circulation. I used to find dimes and pennies with red nail color on one side, or sometimes both, hence the saying; "Not worth a red cent." Pictures would be nice.
well that's what i thought at first so I was going to discard the first one but now that I got this new set in and there's another one with the same year and same color red... I decided to fish the first one out and see if there was anything to it... If nothing else I guess that's one big coincidence... lol
Painting the coins in red had nothing to do with the origin of the phrase, "Not worth a red cent." http://sensology.blogs.com/sensational_color/2006/08/not_worth_a_red.html Chris
It was a common practice of bars & taverns of the 70's, 80's and into the 90's to use red nail polish to paint some of their coins to use in the various gaming machines and jukeboxes. If a customer lost their money in a machine, the owner or employee of the establishment would replace it, and when the vendor made his collection rounds, these "marked" coins would be separated from the receipts and returned to the house. Chris
I'm not sure, but it seems to me that many years ago around 1940-50's that coins from pin ball, juke boxes and any machine that took coins, the operators would give the proprietors a certain amount of applicable coins which were painted red so they could start the music, the red coins determined the free plays from the actual take. I know that your coins are more recent, but the premise could be the same when repairing a machine and checking with a coin to make sure it is operational. It's all about accountability. Dave
I never knew that. Thanks for that info! Oddly...that makes them much more interesting and collectible in my book. :too-funny:
LOL! That's pretty cool info! Thanks! I thought it was really weird they were the same year... Think I'll hang on to them just for fun
Interesting, I've found probably 10 or so red painted 76 quarters in change, probably from a bar around here or something.
I was mentioning the saying as a possibility of why people color coins with red nail polish, not that coins colored in red nail polish is how that saying began.
They were probably in the the bank robber's bag when the die pack exploded...yep, that's my guess. :thumb:
It was supposed to tie Kennedy with the Catholic church. The red paint was to signify a Catholic Cardinals red hat.
