18th Century Graffiti - Practical Purpose or Not?

Now that I am paying attention, I see more and more 18th century pieces with graffiti scratched into them. I have even noticed lately that counterfeit pieces often have similar graffiti that is an apparent attempt to lend authenticity to the piece..... My 1795 dollar is below and it has an "X" scratched into the eagles chest. In my mind, a colonial era American likely doesn't have the time or energy to devote much time to such endeavors as scratching graffiti on his money, so I have to wonder..... Was there a practical purpose for a colonial era American to mark his cash?

 

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While I don't have a ready answer to this I did find a couple of threads here and one other site on the subject that shed a little light on this:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/xs-scratched-into-coins.222573/
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/coins-with-scratches-on-an-ngc-coin.309169/
and:
https://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=33696

 

Making sure it was "real".

 

Maybe they had 2 , this one being an eXtra
Could be the X marked coin in a shell game.
That wouldn't explain the rim ding.

Good reminder to Flatten those staples...

 

Even in colonial times, people had time to get bored. Even people wealthy enough to have a dollar coin to fiddle with.

 

A group called Cross Pennies Ministries used to carve an X on coins to signify a broken cross. I believe that an X on a coin was done after 1964 as a means to tell a silver coin from the newer clad ones. They were also painted with mail polish to identify them.

 

Might be a Norse Rune.

 

I was going to guess an early roll hunter marking their rejects like people do with clad Kennedy Halfs nowadays.

I like the other explanations better.

 

This condition is caused by birthday let down. Lol Hope you had a great day yesterday @Kentucky.

 

Yeah, I think I'll go mutilate a coin...

 

There are lots of ways you can do that. Have fun and enjoy yourself.

 

Actually the only way I have ever "mutilated" any was in trying to clea... uh conserve them

 

As a young teenager I tried putting coins on the railroad tracks but they always fell off before the train got to them. At least the engineer blew his horn.

 

Early day golf ball place keeper. George had the same coin, so Jeff marked his with an X so they could keep track.

 

It was to let others know they were mentally deficient.

 

Out of the box thought - could be so the owner could identify/describe it if ever lost or stolen.

 

It may not be true to life, but I have read in a nineteenth century novel that one of the characters put an X on all his coins so that if they were stolen he could identify them. James

 

Seems like I have a Stone Mountain half around somewhere that has an x scratched on the back.