I got this quarter from work(cashier) and i've never seen one like this. Can anybody tell me if it's altered or just a mistake?
An attempt at a magician's coin. The coin was machined to create a hollow space to accept the heads side of another coin machined to fit the void. We see these here quite often.
Actually, I think it looks like exactly half of a magicians coin or "Spy Coin". A clever person coin spend 1 half at a time thereby getting 50 cents for a quarter provided they got the coin for free as these cost a bit more than a quarter. Lifted from eBay:
Not just a magician coin always as 19lyds said. For instance a hollow nickel discovered by a newsboy, I believe in 1948 which had a coded message inside, went to the NYPD and then to the FBI. The FBI had a hard time cracking the code, but one of the spies decided to defect and advised the FBI of the code and many other objects they had used. It led to an arrest of another spy whom was later traded for an American U2 pilot. Now these coins are most commonly used by magicians, but one never knows as they still catch spies in the US. A good one runs around $21.00 but there are real cheap ones at novelty stores.
