Time Machines And Cherrypicking

Okay i'll get the ball rolling;

1) Winchester, England 1137. I'd be able to Cherrypick some real nice pennies out of Circulation, better to go there when there's a fair on so that money is freely flowing. Also take a sword for defence, alot of thieves would be around.

2) London, England January 1649. Execution of Charles I, finished off with a spot of shopping.

3) New York, USA 1924. I'd hit the banks and get some rolls of Mercs or SLQ's or something.


Although I suppose if I really was given the opportunity i'd probably pick;

Southampton, England, 10th April 1912, 11.00am. I'd buy a camera and get snapping photos like no one's business. A good hour to get plenty of photos...

(How many others on here are going to want to be there with me on April 10th? cough, National Dealer?)

Whatever is the top denomination ($20?) or several lower denominations, like 20 $1 pieces.

I would pick
Phildelphia, 1913

I would snag a couple if those 1913 Liberty Head Nickels, two rolls of 1913-P Type II Buffalo nickels MS, 10, 1913-P Barber half dollars MS, 1913-P $10.00 Gold Piece MS.

If I had to buy products you could send me back to July 4, 1776. I would buy 5 copies of the Declaration of Independence and try and buy Thomas Jefferson's notes that he sent to the printer that was used to create it. I would buy a musket new and a new Flint lock pistol.

catman

Camp Black Horse Bien Hoa Vietnam 1969. I'm sure I could find a troop there that would sell me an 11th Armored Cavalry token at face value. And it would seem too that's the only way I'm ever going to find one.

For profit I'd go to San Francisco 1909 and pick up 40 rolls of 1909-S VDBs. The coin I'd take with me to spend would be a Double Eagle.

Now that I made a profit it's time for some sloth and debauchery. No better place for that than San Francisco's Barbary Coast around, oh, 1892ish. Thalia's Cafe at Market and Turk Street would be a good place to start. They issued some pretty neat looking ad and good for tokens. Of course one has to partake in the festivities in order to get them. A regrettable sacrifice I'd have to make for scholastic purposes.

"Hey sailor, buy me drinkee."

This topic is fraught with imaginative possibilities, not the least of which is the physics behind (or not behind) time travel and the consequences (or non-consequences) of doing ANYTHING to disturb the past which would change the future (meaning the Now).

First, Rachel beat me to Carson City, NV for some CC Morgans although I might visit there in 1889. Or maybe Philly in 1895.

And catman was reading my mind on securing some late 18th century firearms although I'd like to have a little talk with Oliver Winchester about 1866 or maybe E. S Allin at Springfield Armory in 1865.

Ætheling, there were already a lot of photographers taking pictures of the Titanic as it sailed on its maiden voyage, but you might want to interview a few of the passengers and crew before they take off, maybe warn them about icebergs.

longnine009, I'm not at all sure I wanna go back to Vietnam for ANY reason, but if I had to, I need some better Americal tokens from Chu Lai for myself. I'll keep an eye out for 11th Cav tokens while I'm at the machines. Perhaps I'd visit about 11 November 1970 during a C-Day conversion so I could pick up complete cherry sets of both old- and new-series MPCs.

Since some of the better dates have already been visited (and we all know the dangers to the space-time continuum if time travelers go back for repeat visits), my selection would be 14 April 1865 to Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC. or, more specifically, to Peterson's Boarding House across the street where he died. Can you imagine the value of the silver dollars used to cover his eyes? [:0] Anything I picked up in change after that would be insignificant in comparison.

Why can't we take back some folding money (say, a $100 bill) or the period instead of a coin (max $20); get a lot more change that way. Also, the coinage of a selected period might be too valuable in this period to spend back in the period. The paper money would be a lot easier to carry and conceal (the latter in the instance the time machine messed up and sent one back to the wrong time period; sci-fi books are filled with time travelers who ended up in the wrong period with the wrong clothing and accouterments and were burned at the stake for that reason).

quote:

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Originally posted by catman

Morgan Fred

I often wondered if peoples thinking may be flawed when they say that if we travel back in time and change something it would effect the whole timeline from there on.

Has anyone ever thought that if a person was to go back in time and change something that that was what was suppose to happen. In which case they wouldn't change history they would be part of it.

catman

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There's two schools of thought on this philosophical question. The first is that if someone were to go back and change something, that the changes to the timeline would increase geometrically with time. Thus, if one went back, say 160 million years and killed a mosquito then returned to his own time, the world would be completely changed.

The second is that a perturbance in the past would cause oscillations in the future, but that they would be dampened out and eventually nullified over time.

Kinda hard to test either hypothesis.

There's a third hypothesis which is more theologically based which states that Fate sets all events and that the Future is already pre-determined, so that no matter what a time traveller might do, there would be no change to the future (the traveller's Present). See the latest incarnation of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine in which the hero's beloved dies no matter what he does to prevent it.

Now, your second question is the classic time travel quandary. If a person could go back to change the past, would that person still be the same person in the future (his Present)? A good movie on this subject is Final Countdown (1980, Martin Sheen, Kirk Douglas) in which the carrier U.S.S. Nimitz is thrust back to 6 December 1941 and presented with the opportunity to prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Fred

To any bank in the United States in the year 1921, so I could purchase a brand new roll of Walking Liberty half dollars. P, D or S, it would not matter!!

Yep me and the Titanic, lifelong fascination. I'd love to have seen it. (I can't afford to go down in a submarine to see it!). I ciould get some nice George V coronation year (1911) coins in circulation too and some nice Edward VII florins.


My theory on time hypotheis is that if you go back to the past you've already got to have been there before. So you can do what the heck you like when you're there. Perhaps this is why Leonardo Da Vinci was so ahead of his time? ;)

I could go warning all the passengers that the ship would sink, or that all the evnts surrounding the ship before it sails is are ill omens (if I was worried about interrupting the future), but as you'll note there were people around at the time saying everyone on the ship was doomed. So you know... (Perhaps these people are from our future [when time machines exist] and have gone back to 1912 to have a good poke around).

Might also explain De ja vu? (the feeling that you've done something before, perhaps you're going to take a trip in a time machine in 20 years back to the day you experienced De ja vu? and that explains why you felt as if you knew that was coming, because an older you [or you reincarnated perhaps?] had been there only the day before!) :D