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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;19Lyds, post: 2302763, member: 15929&quot;]In the 50&#039;s and early 60&#039;s, it was not considered a hazardous material and could be found in ANY household thermometer.</p><p><br /></p><p>Well, let me correct that, while it may have been a hazardous material (gasoline is hazardous) there were no government regulations in place to protect the ignorant from doing something dumb such as finding out what it tastes like.</p><p><br /></p><p>The real hazard from mercury come, not necessarily from casual contact, but from contamination of fish, food, and water supplies.</p><p><br /></p><p>From what I understand, mercury was used a lot in the manufacturing of paper to create bleaching agents which caused quite an environmental problem between 1962 and 1970 when a certain paper company was dumping their waste into English-Wabigoon River. That river fed a natural lake and the contamination for the folks downstream was devastating.</p><p><br /></p><p>The resulting litigation and publicity of the mercury poisoning which occurred caused many laws to be passed to prevent it from happening again. Either by accident (i,e, broken thermometer, thermometers in the garbage, etc.) or by intent such as certain manufacturing processes.</p><p><br /></p><p>BTW, mercury is naturally found in the environment since it is an element but it&#039;s occurance is very rare. It was used quite extensively in the past for refining gold (right up there with cyanide) and has been bound in ancient Mayan Tombs.</p><p><br /></p><p>Google it as there is a wealth of information available all of which indicates that, other than direct injection into the body, casual contact is not life threatening.</p><p><br /></p><p>Maybe one of our local chemists will chime in but what I&#039;m saying is that simple, casual handling a mercury coated coin is not hazardous to your health.</p><p><br /></p><p>Unless, of course, you swallow the danged thing and then all bets are off.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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