Hello, I have a small collection of coins which seem to have been deliberately defaced as a political protest, etc. For example, a Napoleon coin has a star of scratches across his face and I have a GB pound coin of 1990 with RIRA punched onto it - Real IRA. The last one could have been pupils in the metalwork dept. at the local school 'messing about'. Other coins have drills or punches applied to the head of the rulers. I hope to write up an artricle about this topic - does anyone out there have any other examples?
Sounds like a case a simple inmature childish ignorance. When I was a boy my brother and I would distroy things simply because they were there. Then when we got busted for it we had to listen to how valuable this stuff used to be, then came the ass wooping. In the early sixties I lived on a farm with a railroad track a couple of hundred yards from the house. I thought the coins I put on the track looked so cool after the train had run over them that I sacrificed much of my candy money to do so. Lord only know what numismatic treasures I destroyed back then.
Way, way, way back when I was a kid the apparent distruction of coins seamed like the thing to do. One of the things we all did back then was flipping coins at a line in the side walk. A bunch of kids would stand in a spot and flip a coin to see who is the closest to the second line. The coins, usually pennies, would slowly get dented really bad. We too would put coins on railroad tracks to see what they would look like. Drilliing holes in them to collect the Silver from the drillings, make a combination with lead, melt it all down to make lead soldiers that would shine nice. Then blow them up with filrecrackers or shoot them with a gun. They were thrown in lakes, rivers, ponds, wishing wells and just about anywhere else. Sure wish I could go back and inspect the coins before they were messed up or lost forever.
