At Stop and Shop this morning and I thought this was a typical 1970 penny ground down to the size of a dime.. It was typical till I felt and saw the person actually went out of the way and filed the rim with ridges Did this coin actually make its rounds in pay phones and vending machines?? The pics aren't the greatest but the ridges are there and you feel them well.
I have found about a dozen of them that were cut down to dime sizes - they must have worked or there wouldn't be so many of them.
If a pack of ciggs was 50 cents in a vending machine in the early 70's I can see someone with alot of time on their hands doing this or a bottle of soda in those classic Coca Cola machines. Either way it's theft
I found this coin in a CoinStar-type machine reject bin in 2015: The coin was probably altered with a file to pass as a dime in a vending machine. It weighs 2.67 gm, is 19 mm in diameter, and the sides are smooth. I had heard of pennies altered this way but had not seen one until now. In 2010 President Obama pardoned a former marine who plead guilty to "coin mutilation" in 1963. He and his friends were altering pennies to pass as dimes. https://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/03/obama.pardons/index.html
When I was a youngster in the '50s, it was common to rub a penny on a sidewalk until it was the size of a dime - voilà', a coke AND change for 1¢!
This penny now weighs 2.46 or 2.47. I am all for sending this cut up penny to anyone who wants to see it. Maby do a member to member sending thing. I'm sure everyone has seen them but the ridge filing makes it more serious and a bit cooler.
I remember looking through the telephone coin return and believe or not I would often find change left behind. Thanks for the memory.
I remember the round thing that breaks when you open the soda cans (don't know how it is called) worked in the parking meters. This is what I meant:
As a little kid with a fifty-cent-a-week allowance and all the time in the world, I probably would've been all over that -- if I'd been brought up wrong, or fallen in with the wrong crowd. Instead, I ate and drank what we had in the house, and buried my nose in books. It worked out, pretty much.
Pop top, tab, or pull tab it's what's inside that is refreshing don't you think? Great posts, thanks.
The original defacer took the time to try and duplicate the reeds on the edge thinking it would be needed to pass as a dime in a machine, so in my opinion it shows that was the purpose for how the coin looks.