I was wondering what are the theories behind were all the rare or scarce coing go? Is spending them mean they some how disapear? Is the Govt the prime culprit of making coins dsapear/melt? any ideas guies or girls?
It's called attrition - some are melted, some are lost, some are worn out and some are sitting in somebody's house and they don't even know it.
I've mentioned this several times in the past. Way, way back when I was a kid the value of a coin was what it was. I never knew of coin values being worth anything except what they said on them. I collected them for fun. Then some idiot came out with a thing called the Red Book and put coin conditions and prices on them and people started dealing with coins as something special. Prior to that most people didn't know there was a Mint. They thought coins just appeared. However, prior to that we threw them in wishing wells, placed them on RR and street car tracks, shot at them with guns, blew them into the air with firecrackers, melted them down just to see them melt, placed in a jar with battery acid stolen from our parents car batterys. Some kids drilled holes or cut the edges off for the Silver and sold to nighborhood jewlery stores. Used to have contest to see who could throw a coin accross a river. Used to be a game where you lagged coins at a line in the concrete sidewalks and the closest ones won the coins. It was considered good luck to place a coin in with the concrete for new sidewalks. We occationally buried coins in a small chest pretending to be pirates and never found them. I've always wonder how any coins survived us at all.
Good story Carl, you could write a small book on that subject. is there a movie about a coin bieng passed down thru the generations? I wish there was a way to rewind the life and story of any coined you held in your hands. Imagine all the different people and events the coin passed thru.....
