Time Travel Barter Game

4/19/21: The giveaway portion of this thread is now CLOSED. Winners were announced in Post #84 and Post #88.

However, if you'd like to keep right on playing with the time travel storytelling part, please do! Keep those stories coming!

This one is a little different than my usual giveaways. It is not purely random, though we will pick a random winner from amongst a select group of finalists at the end. Nor is it a high-dollar prize, but hopefully the game will be fun.

So... what if you could go back in time and barter - pocket change for pocket change - with the shopkeepers and bankers in a major American city in the 1800s? What coins would you bring home with you? What city would you visit?

Here's the scenario.

You have a creaky old H.G. Wells-style time machine you found in the basement of an old building. It is rusty and not in the best of shape, but it still works. (This is definitely not Doc Brown's DeLorean with the flux capacitor here- it's a pretty primitive time machine. But like I said, it works... mostly.)

The place destination dial will still allow you to select any major American city to go to (there's a list of them on the dial). But the rusty gears to the time destination dial are stuck on Friday, April 21, 1865, at 12:34 PM. So you can choose where you go, but you have no choice of when you're going to end up. You're going to to end up in a Friday afternoon in the spring of 1865. And the creaky, dilapidated time machine only has enough power for one round trip. (It runs off unobtanium crystals, I think. And the crystals are old and cracked.)

So you go. And you arrive safely, in April, 1865.

The Civil War is winding down, now that Lee has recently surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. Abraham Lincoln was just assassinated and died only six days ago, and much of the country- at least the North- is in mourning. The South is in ruins. Jefferson Davis has fled Richmond, the capital of the defeated Confederacy, but has not yet been captured.

So that is when you're going to arrive. But where will you choose to land your rickety old time machine?

You have outfitted yourself in some simple clothing of the period, so you won't stick out in a crowd when you're walking around in 1865. You choose your destination city, land the machine in a farm field on the edge of town, conceal it beneath a haystack, and walk down the main street into town.

As you walk along, you spot a dime lying on the ground. There... see it? Right there. Whoa! Be careful! Don't step in the horse plops! Yes. There.

You pick it up.

It is an 1857 dime, by now eight years old but already quite well worn for its age.



You pick it up and put it into your pocket. Besides the clothes on your back, it is the only commodity you have during this, your brief visit to 1865. By now you have concealed your time machine under the haystack, and it's almost 1:00 PM. You have from now until midnight to walk around town and find something to spend your dime on.

But if you don't get back into the time machine by the final seconds of 11:59 PM on April 21, 1865, to return to the 21st century, you'll be stuck in 1865 for the rest of your life, and we'll never hear from you again, because you'll end up in an insane asylum when you tell them all your stories about the future. (And trust me, an insane asylum in 1865 is not the kind of place you want to spend the rest of your days!)

So... what will it be? Since we are discussing this on a coin forum, we're mostly looking to hear what coins you'd trade your circulated 1857 dime for, though you're allowed to spend the dime on something else, if you prefer.

If you're going to try to get other coins in exchange for it, let's assume the shopkeepers are friendly enough to let you sort through their tills (with careful supervision, of course) when you politely ask them for change for a dime, and you explain that you're a coin collector and would like to buy some other coins with it. It's a big city, so they've heard of coin collectors. They think you're a rather odd character, but you're friendly and polite, so they play along tolerantly as you pick and sort through their stacks of coins on the counter, watching carefully to make sure you don't pocket any of them until they have your dime.

You have a little less than eleven hours in a major American city in April of 1865. How are you going to spend that dime you found? What are you going to bring home to the 21st century?

The best, most creative, and most well-thought-out barter scenarios described, which bring home the most interesting stuff from the trip (remember- your story, though imaginative, has to be plausible) will get a place on the finalist list in this contest. Any story I like, for creativity or for the best, most interesting and plausible barter scenario, will be declared a finalist.

At the end of this month (March 2021) I will do a drawing from amongst all the finalists, and the winner gets to keep that actual 1857 dime above (in reality). I'll send it to you, or whomever you choose, if you win. Plus you'll be keeping all that time travel loot you're going to make with it (virtually).

Get in the time machine and go! Where are you going? What are you going to do there? What will you bring home?

 

If this contest (#54) is too much work for you, Giveaway #53 is still running as of the time of this post. The drawing for that will be at sometime after midnight on March 21st, 2021, and that one, like most of my giveaways, will be a simple random drawing.

But let's see you win this one (#54) with your wits.

Below are some more pictures of the prize coin.

It's nothing spectacular, but it is a wholesome enough circulated example, and it is a "CircCam" (Circulated Cameo).

And someone with a great time travel story will win it.

I might also sweeten the pot with another pre-Civil War coin or two if this thread takes off and we get enough fun stories out of it.

 

By all means, plan out your adventure, and join in when you're ready.

 

@Randy Abercrombie - it’s your fault for sending me down this rabbit hole of a daydream.

 

I like it. I thought about Philadelphia and proof coins, too. Is that your choice, or are you going to the ruins of Richmond?

Remember, y’all can always buy something with the dime, then trade that something for coins. But you’ve only got about eleven hours.

 

*BANG!* You have an instant and rather fatal encounter with a .69 caliber Minié bullet. Game over.

Reset button. You may try again if you like.

 

No no, it is April 21, 1865, not 1857 (that was the date on your well worn dime). But your scenario still works. Though I don’t know how likely you are to get an 1856 Flying Eagle cent, which was, after all, a proof pattern coin. But there were what, a thousand or so struck? And you did say you’re in Philadelphia, so I’ll buy that scenario, even if it’s a long shot. It could’ve happened.

You get one slightly impaired proof 1856 Flying Eagle cent (PR53), and the other four cents are 1857 and 1858 coins, ranging from XF45 to MS63. Not bad.

@Randy Abercrombie makes the finalist list.

 

In that case, you visit the Mint, explain you’re a collector, and tell them you would like to see what you can buy for a dime. What’ll it be?

This is getting interesting.

 

I feel your pain, believe me.

All right, you may borrow a period-appropriate pair of spectacles, or a looking glass (magnifier) from the friendly shopkeeper.

 

Somebody help us out here- does the Mint in 1865 sell proof coins at a premium, like today, or can they be had at or near face value? Will @Bradley Trotter be able to buy an additional coin or two with that dime? I don’t know either.

Regardless, even if he gets only one proof coin, it will be a beautiful and frosty Cameo example.

Which one would you pick, if it had to be just one?

PS- @Bradley Trotter - don’t forget the two-cent piece might be an option, too!