Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 2181852, member: 112&quot;]Coins are said to last (by the people who make them) about 30 years. This number is arrived at based on many, many, decades of research and actual experience done by the mints of the world. And yes, it applies to coins of all metals.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now some might question that because in this day and age silver and gold coins are simply not used anymore of course. So few have any personal experience with them and thus they question and doubt what others may say.</p><p><br /></p><p>But wear is wear and it affects pretty much all coins the same regardless of their metal content. Silver and gold are not nearly as soft and susceptible to wear as many who have no actual experience over time with them &quot;think&quot; they are. They merely hear of the metals being described as being soft and that conjures up images and ideas in their minds that are rarely true or accurate. It&#039;s kind of like seeing people bite gold coins in the movies. Most think that was done, and yeah it actually was done, to see if the gold coin was soft enough to leave teeth marks in it, thinking that gold is &quot;soft&quot; so it would leave teeth marks and thus prove the coin was good.</p><p><br /></p><p>But that&#039;s not the case at all. Gold coins were bitten to make sure they were hard and no tooth marks could be left in them. Because if they were soft, that meant they were fakes.</p><p><br /></p><p>But just to give you kind of an idea of the hardness and wearability of gold coins here&#039;s a couple of pictures I took. This specific coin was carried in my pocket, every day 7 days a week, with other pocket change and a pocket knife. It was used on a regular basis as the coin being flipped in coin flips. It was tossed on the floor, dropped on the ground, fingered, rubbed, handed form person to person, used and abused as any other coin might be. And after 7 years of that this is what it looked like. And this is just one example as I did the exact same thing with several examples over the years.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]422514[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]422515[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>As you can see there is nothing but ordinary, even wear on the coin. There are no large dings or hits, no scratches, no dents. That&#039;s because gold coins are hard, not soft. Soft is a relative term when discussing metals. Yeah sure gold is soft as compared to steel, but in the common sense of the word it&#039;s pretty dang hard and takes a beating without showing any undue signs of it.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>edit - One thing I should add, the time period I mentioned would probably correspond to double, and maybe even triple, the amount of wear a coin would normally undergo when in circulation. That&#039;s because this coin, and the others like it, was constantly rubbing against other coins and objects for about 16 hrs a day, every day, as a result of being in my pocket. Coins in actual circulation spend the majority of their time sitting still, not moving, in a cash drawer, in a jar at home, or in a bank, and thus not undergoing wear. While this coin did undergo that wear basically all the time.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in