1826 Half Cent

Now you can do that bar trick where someone does a few sums and gets 4.5 as an answer. You'll be drowning in free beer :O

Free beer for having a Half Cent? I might have to visit my local coin shop.

How does this trick work?

There was a thread about this recently! I forget the exact details, but there are a variety of techniques available to make someone always arrive at the number 9: the simplest is to ask some guy at a bar to pick a number from 1 to 9, multiply it by 9, then add the digits together. Of course, most tricksters will add a good deal of pointless math to this basic sequence to obfuscate their intentions.

This trick becomes interesting is when you ask the rube to divide their number (9) by 2 to arrive at 4.5. Then you bet them a beer that you have that amount of change in your pocket. Most people will say yes because they assume you've botched the math (try to act uncertain about your sums). Then, you triumphantly pull out four pennies and your Half Cent. For variety, you could also have two large cents, a Flying Eagle cent, and an Indian Head cent, because they'll be more likely to buy you the beer if they've seen something neat.

However, some people just do this with a boring Lincoln Cent cut in half. Beware these people, as one of them may have already tipped off your local drinking population.

I tend to like coins with character! It is too bad about the damage but the detail and coloring are detail! It is also one of only 234,000 made:).