If It's Ilegal To Deface Coins, How Come People

Actually, not to be the killjoy in this thread, but I might have a theory about the elephants!

Back in the 1860s, the King of Siam enjoyed a friendly correspondence with our then-President, and offered a royal gift to the United States. Among other properties . . . . well, I'll just let you read an excerpt from Lincoln's gracious declining of the gift:

I appreciate most highly Your Majesty's tender of good offices in forwarding to this Government a stock from which a supply of elephants might be raised on our own soil. This Government would not hesitate to avail itself of so generous an offer if the object were one which could be made practically useful in the present condition of the United States.

Our political jurisdiction, however, does not reach a latitude so low as to favor the multiplication of the elephant, and steam on land, as well as on water, has been our best and most efficient agent of transportation in internal commerce.

Lincoln allowed this correspondence to be published publicly for people to read (sidenote: this probably came from a political motive; part of this correspondence includes the King of Siam's assertion that "the system of American Slavery" was known to be "repugnant to everyone" from around the world. Given that the King had slaves of his own, this was a powerful contrast between types of slavery* and also showed that other powerful world leaders were on Lincoln's side), so it's entirely possible that some group of politicos went " . . . . but what if the King says that there are elephants that do well in cold, or in--oh crap--the South? OUR FIELDS!! WHERE'S THE PANIC BUTTON?"




*Just in case anybody's going "what the--TYPES of slavery?", I studied this king in college (he's the same king portrayed in The King and I). His slaves were fed, housed, and provided with clothes. American slaves were not given clothes, had to grow their own food, and lived pretty much in conditions we would consider prisonlike.

Going back to the Cuban coin thing: I knew someone who imported small Cuban coins because they were the same size and weight as subway tokens and they worked in the turnstiles. They`ve since changed the tokens so they no longer work, but things like this happen.