Some Of The Dumbest Things You Have Heard Non Collectors Say About Coins

Canadian pennies are worth money. (yup.... damn near one cent)

 

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I have an 1887-S Half Eagle and when a dealer saw it they (I'll admit, jokingly) said I should have the S removed...

Take Care
Ben
http://www.coinfacts.com/half_eagles/with_motto_half_eagles/1887_liberty_head_half_eagle.htm

 

Actually, for awhile they were worth more than one cent (although this past week it flipped back).

 

I have heard the same thing over and over but about the "Drummer Boy" quarters. My father showed be bags of them he collected from change bragging about how much they were going to be worth and how he was going to retire on the profits.

 

just thought of another one. i was working and my boss knew i collected coins and said "do you know the 1937 nickels with 3 leggs is worth a million dollars!" i said no not that much. he said how much are they worth then? i said probaly $450 on a good day. he didn't believe that they were "only" worth that. then a few weeks later he brings coins up again and he tells me that it is illegal to melt silver. i said no they passed a law a long time ago that says you can melt silver. he didn't believe me on that one either! :headbang:

 

Is it legal to melt silver coinage?
I always thought melting any coins were illegal...

 

its not tool ate. quick where is the pond. me and coin lover are coming if we get a few nice old cents and make of with a few million it would be great

 

I volunteer to answer coin questions on another site. One question which seems to be making the rounds now are the (post mint struck) Lincoln cents which have JFK, Mickey Mouse, the Liberty Bell, etc., in the fields around the bust.

I just had one fellow swear that this is the way his JFK/Lincoln Cent came, inside a little glass bottle, (like a ship in a bottle) from the mint and that I knew virtually nothing about coin collecting.

I truly hope this individual was joking, but if not It explains alot why some of these CRAZY sales on Ebay seem to be happening...

Take Care
Ben

 

When a non-collector refers to 1943 steel cents as "lead pennies."

Mark
Coral Springs, FL

 

Take it from a guy that knows. Those are REALLY hard to get into rolls.

 

About 3 years ago I had a teller at my bank swear to me that some Sac dollars were actually minted in gold, but that you had to know how to tell the difference from the ones that weren't. She said she was told this by a coin collector who searched Sacs. Therefore, searching rolls of Sacs instead of Kennedys would be a smarter thing for me to do with my time.

The same teller tried to take my canvas mint "returns" bag away from me, claiming that it was illegal for me to have it. I showed her on her computer where anyone could buy the bags directly from the US Mint.

My department head at work (nice guy, real tool) knows I collect coins. Yesterday, while I was shooting the breeze with one of our IT guys (a platinum collector), he brought me an ad he tore out of a magazine that he claimed was about a year old. It was a sales pitch for 1/10 oz. AGEs for $65 each. He saw the $5 "face" value and asked me, "Who in their right mind would spend $65 for a coin that is only worth $5?" I explained to him that gold was closing in on $900 an ounce, and that the 1/10 ounce coin would be worth close to $90 more or less. I also explained (briefly) the idea behind ownership of bullion rounds/coins. His response? "Oh yeah, then why does it only say $5 on it? That's a total rip off!" The IT guy and I just looked at each other and shrugged. :headbang:

In another recent thread I reported that my father has a 1 gallon bucket of bicentennial quarters that is overflowing. I should have also mentioned that he has several vending machines at his business- video games, clothes washers, and dryers, etc. 3 times a week he empties them and picks out all of the 1976 quarters. For years I've watched him with a mild amusement. I finally asked him what he was going to do with all of his quarters. He smiled and said they'd be worth a lot of money one day. I told him over 1.6 billion were minted and that BU examples could be easily had for less than 50¢. He laughed at me and said, "They only made these things one year!" OK, dad!

 

^ oh man!
Now you have to tell your dad that they were minted in 1975 too!!

 

LOL, I bet...

Ben

 

I work in a large nursing home and sometimes bring a coin to show the old folks. Some of them used to collect coins and many are interested in looking at the pieces I take to work. One lady used to have gold coins and another lady collected 3 cent coins.
Where I get mixed reactions is from the staff. Some co-workers are quite interested, others fake an interest by looking quickly at the obverse. Then they hand it back without looking at the reverse. One or two absolutely hate it and will never take a coin from my hand to look at it. If they see me with a coin they walk away or turn their backs. I find this amusing. They say "Why do you bring that here"? One girl said she hates coins.

 

That is true...
You can find a TON of info on: www.smalldollars.com

Speedy

 

Uhhh.....I knew someone would bring this up. Guess I should have been more finite in my post.

I really, really doubt if any gold Sacs made it into circulation. In fact, I know the guy who told the teller about the "gold" gold dollars. He was actually looking for '03- present Sacs, the ones not released into general circulation. Maybe that included the '02s too? Anyway, he said he made up the story about severeal Sacs being minted in gold to throw the tellers off his trail. He said he didn't want to create any competition.

 

I'm pretty sure it's only illegal to melt cents and nickels because they are the only coins that are cost more to mint than their face value.

 

Wow upper management in action.
A good example of why things are so screwed up. Can you say "think outside of the box"?

Ask him if he invests in stock. Hey, it's just paper or even less if you do it online.

 

i wonder if they will sell the 12 gold dollars that still survive. i would love to own one of those?

 

Last summer, I participated with a church related mission work trip that went to Slidell, Louisiana (just east of New Orleans) to do home construction to aid the elderly and disabled as part of a Katrina relief effort. We took an afternoon to sightsee a bit in New Orleans itself. While a group of us were walking down the sidewalk, one of the locals stopped us and chatted a bit. At one point, he started singing a song in a uniquely New Orleans style (not sure what it should be called), with the very deep voice. He was really quite entertaining, but I am doubtfull that he was entirely sober. Some people are strange enough that it is hard to tell if they are under some sort of influence. Anyway, after completing his performance, he indicated that we each owed him a dollar.

I like to spend halves, dollar coins, and $2 bills and such and watch reactions. The Washington dollars had not been out all that long, but I had some in my pocket. After pretty much everyone had given him a dollar bill, he turns to me and I gave him a Washington dollar coin. Looking at it through his bloodshot eyes, he began to exclaim very loudly (and very often) "The brother gave me a quarta!!", "Can you believe it? The brother gave me a QUARTA!!!!!" My attempts to inform him that it was a dollar went unheeded, as he stumbled off down the street, repeating those phrases at least until out of our earshot. By far my most memorable event.