About a month ago I started collecting coins I find on the ground. I don't do it because I need the change I find, I am doing it because I was curious on how much it would add up to after a year of collecting. I just find face valued clad but it has become a side hobby of collecting coins that has become a little bit exciting. Has anyone tryed this or is currently doing something like this?
My deceased uncle used to walk everywhere (by choice, not necessity). He would pick up any change he found (trolley and bus stops were particularly lucrative), bring it home and put it in jars. He did this from the time he was 10 years old. When he was married at 26 years old, he had enough changed stashed to purchase a small piece of land and have a house built on it. They lived in this house for the rest of their lives and never had to pay a mortgage.
Been picking coins up off the ground for years. Never really tracked it. Even pennies under racks at stores are not out of range for me. I take my change and put it into jars - at the end of the year(on christmas) my nephews all get a jar of change. Who knows maybe one of these times it will be one of the WAM variety pennies.
Heck - in the parking lot at work in one week I found $2 in change. I picked up .21 at the gas station on Sunday just walking around the pumps. Been a while since I picked up any green.
I do keep track. I found about $9 in change last year, including a 1938 cent and some common pre-1960 stuff.
My wife and I have been collecting and keeping track of the change that we've found since we got married (June 2002). At this point (about 125 months later), we have found about $165 worth of change and bills. We have them stored in 3 old Mason Jars on a shelf in a storage room. Eventually, we want to collect so much that we can go on vacation with our findings. Looks like it will have to be a short car trip somewhere.
I find a lot of coins when I ride my bike. They're usually on the street outside a car's driver's side door.
I metal detect once in a while at the local park. I can find at least $3 in modern clad coins in an hour. It makes me realize how much money is just laying around!
I've thought about it but never done it. I find money all the time though, especially pennies. I can almost count on finding something during any visit to the grocery store. Just walk past the checkouts and look down the aisles and around the bags and you'll find a coin more often than not. Also check the coin returns at the self-checkouts. It's easy money.
Well, I am a bit different, anyone who knows me, can attest. I throw change into the street. Not you normal change mind you, but worn IHC, Buffalos, a few Lib nickels etc. etc. I don't do it a lot, and only with well worn coins that are not worth that much, but it is a real hoot. Kids and adults find them, and there is always chat around the neighbor of where this old money is coming from. It is a real neighborhood mystery. Hopefully I am am getting a few YN's started. I have been doing it for years, but like I said, not too much, maybe twice a year.
That kind of reminds me about a year ago before I started collecting again, when I was rolling up some clad change to exchange for bills, I added probably 10 dateless Buffalo nickels to a roll. I hope a collecter ended up with the roll because it would have been an exciting find.
I've noticed the same thing -- usually at intersections. I think I see more nickels and dimes than cents at this point, and even the occasional quarter. It's usually not safe to stop and grab them, though, and I'm usually more interested in keeping up my riding pace anyhow. There's one busy intersection where somebody dumped what must have been a whole roll of nickels. They'd been run over quite a bit by the time I encountered them. I grabbed a few, and I've been meaning to enter them in the "most mutilated coin" contest. The next day when I went through, nearly all were gone, except for a few that were wedged into the road surface.
I always scan the ground when I walk. Found two $20 bills this year lying in the parking lot, no lie!
I've found a couple dollars and a 20 in my years, but never anything very interesting. Picked up a 79' penny the other day, score!
When I was a kid me and a buddy found a $20.00 bill while camping with my Dad near the park store and some 25 years later when me and my wife used to like going fishing we went to the same park and took a walk down a road where there was an old pier to fish well it was sat morn and alot of teenagers came to party and drink the night before up the side of the lake on 4 wheeler s Well one of them lost a $50.00 dollar bill and my wife found it in the rocks. We had a good time that day local firemen had a field day going and we had chicken dinners, Walked the local scene spent some at craft stores and thrift and bout bait and gas,lol