Spending Old Coins

I spend Buffalo nickels on a pretty regular basis. Generally they're dateless examples, but occasionally I'll spend one that's dated if it's a common date and has some sort of other problem, like being dark or a little corroded. Surprisingly, very few cashiers have ever commented or even slowed down as they tossed it into their tray. I also use them pretty frequently in the Pepsi machine where I work.

I think it makes the Pepsi taste better...!

Interesting comments all....

I can understand not wanting to even spend culls from the 19th century. I would only do it if I knew the coin was not worth anything more than the face value.

The cent was granted limited legal tender status in 1864 to the amount of ten cents. Act of April 22 1864 Sec 4. That same act created the twocent piece and gave it legal tener status to 20 cents.

So the early coppers, large cents and Half Cents, were not legal tender during the time they were being issued.

The pre-federal state coinages were also not legal tender except for I believe NJ which were only legal tender in that state of course.

Would vending machines accept old coins from the 1800's and early 1900's?

The first coin operated vending machine dates back over two thousand years.

And the Hobbes company was NOT a major vending machine company. They were actually a small wannabe company that had recently landed a government contract to supply the machines for some agency and they wanted to make sure their newfangled Counterfeit Detection mechanism worked with the new coins. They kept demanding changes to be made so a machine that wasn't even in production yet would work with the new coins. The other machine makers had not problems or made slight adjustments to their machines and they worked fine. Hobbes wanted the coin changed to match his machine. Even once he did get the machines into the marketplace they were a flop. They suffered frequent break downs and most locations that had them soon changed to his competitors machines. There are a couple of excellent sections on Hobbes and his batttles with the mint on both the Buffalo nickel and Mercury dime in RWB books Renassance of American Coinage 1909-1915, and 1916-1921.



Basically just the nickels (unless they are severely worn and underweight), and not the Shield nickels. Most modern machines won't work with the silver dimes and quarters because they are too heavy and they don't have the proper electromagnetic signature. (Coppernickel clad and 90% silver do not have the same signature. Back in 1965 the coin mechanisms were strictly mechanical and didn't check the signature so that was not a concern. That test was added years later after the silver was out of circulation. It only really became a concern when the Sac dollar came out because the machines had to be able to accept both the SBA and the Sac so they had to create an alloy that did match the signature of coppernickel.)

I thought that once a coin was labeled "obsolete",it was no longer legal tender!!

I think it's a matter of if you can get away with it, I mean in spending an old coin. Whether it's legal tender or not, it all matters on if it will be accepted by the seller.