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 Replies: 21 / Views: 1,819 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
691 Posts |
Pictured below is an 1866 United Kingdom half penny I purchased the day before yesterday. It's a poor quality photograph but for the purposes of this post I don't think that really matters. There are a lot of tourists in town this time of year. I'm thinking about taking it downtown and leaving it somewhere where a small child might find it. Maybe they'll tell their parents a gazillion times, "Look what I found. Look what I found." Maybe their parents will take it back to the local coin store where I bought it thinking they have found an actual valuable treasure. What would you do with it? It only cost me 33 cents.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
94367 Posts |
Surely you know a child you could just give it to!
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
691 Posts |
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Surely you know a child you could just give it to! Not really. Not in this town anyway. |
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Moderator
 United States
34397 Posts |
@ynn, here is an old CCF thread which may be of some interest to you: http://goccf.com/t/289707There are lots of ways to get your unwanted coins to other folks and potentially spark an interest in numismatics. "If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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Bedrock of the Community
United Kingdom
17911 Posts |
Strangely trying to find any British Bun Head halfpenny with a readable date is quite hard - you could probably make a profit if you sold it on ebay. These coins circulated heavily and most had worn out and been withdrawn by the time coin collecting took off in the UK in the 1960s. And for some reason the larger pennies were always more widely collected than the halfpennies. I've been looking for nice, problem-free Fine bun halfpennies for years - they aren't expensive when you find one, but trying to find specific dates is very tough, and most that you do see are from 1860-2 or from the 1880s and 1890s. Edited by NumisRob
06/23/2024 5:36 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19142 Posts |
You could leave it in a tip jar at a busy establishment--must be a few in the greater Santa Fe area.
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Moderator
United States
95443 Posts |
leave it with the rest of a tip on the table next time you go out to eat.
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Pillar of the Community
Russian Federation
5172 Posts |
Quote:Strangely trying to find any British Bun Head halfpenny with a readable date is quite hard - you could probably make a profit if you sold it on ebay. These coins circulated heavily and most had worn out and been withdrawn by the time coin collecting took off in the UK in the 1960s. And for some reason the larger pennies were always more widely collected than the halfpennies. Back in Moscow I had been trying to assemble a lowball date set of the Bun Head pennies - the date was sufficiently recessed on those that a lot of them had almost nothing but the date still legible. I was still missing a few scarcer dates as of last attempt (plus a bunch of later dates in the 1880s/1890s, where most of the examples I could find were way too high grade for my set).  I have been considering branching out into halfpennies... but, yeah, a lot less of those available. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
691 Posts |
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...leave it with the rest of a tip on the table next time you go out to eat. I never go out to eat. |
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Moderator
United States
188052 Posts |
I feel like I would want to be more deliberate than slipping into circulation were it would almost certainly be lost these days.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19142 Posts |
An interesting conversation here. Walk into an ice cream shop--Santa Fe has two or three--and casually leave the piece on the counter; right out in the open. Then, leave the shop.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
691 Posts |
Just so you know, I originally posted this in the Main Coin Forum instead of this UK coin forum on purpose because I was looking for suggestions on how to give away coins anonymously in such a way that might inspire a youngster to become a coin collector. The fact that it happened to be a UK half penny was just incidental. Nonetheless, I can see how including a picture of a particular UK half penny might have caused a moderator to move this thread. Would it be possible to move this thread back to the original forum?
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Moderator
United States
188052 Posts |
I moved this back to the Main forum for you. I also altered the title to broaden it beyond the UK example in your topic. I hope this helps.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2520 Posts |
Put it in the coin reject tray of a Coinstar machine....make somebodys day.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
743 Posts |
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Put it in the coin reject tray of a Coinstar machine....make somebodys day. That would certainly make my day! |
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Moderator
Australia
16816 Posts |
I'd never just leave a coin sitting around out in the open air, hoping someone finds it. Either (a) someone finds it, which will probably result in yet another "I found this weird old coin what's it worth" thread on a coin forum somewhere, or (b) nobody finds it, or they don't find it until after it's turned into a little green rock, in which case a cheap-but-nice coin has been ruined.
Personally, I don't obtain coins I don't want to keep. Even if I "don't really want it", in terms of expanding the core collection, I don't get rid of it. The only exception is obtaining a duplicate. In the example above, if I didn't already have an 1866 halfpenny, I would keep it and put it in the British predecimal date collection next to all the other Queen Victoria halfpennies. If I did already have one, and the coin I had was worse than this one, I'd keep it and dispose of it. I would only dispose of this coin if the 1866 halfpenny I already had was better than this one.
Now to define "dispose". For a relatively cheap common coin, I would toss it into my "duplicates box", a tote tray full of miscellaneous world coins. I'd then take this bucket down to the coin dealer whenever it got too full or heavy. Nicer, odder or more valuable coins would go to my coin club for auction. This specific coin is probably nice enough to try to auction for a couple of dollars. I'd rather let a friend in the coin club have it for a few dollars than give it away to a random for free.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Replies: 21 / Views: 1,819 |
Posted 06/23/2024 3:37 pm
