Holed Coins

Do you know, does this cut the value of the coin dramatically? Being that it is defaced.

The hole does reduce the numismatic value of the coin, but at the time the coin was used as money to be spent at face value it did not affect its value.

as to why they were holed,the reasons are as diverse as the people who punched the holes.

I do know that some of the very small fractional gold coins would have been easily lost if they were not strung together in some fashion.

Jewelry, good luck coins nailed above or on door posts,or just messing around with a nail and hammer are all reasonable explainations as well for the holes found in coins.

The reasons are endless. I've seen a teething ring of half-dimes, holes at 12 oclock meant for jewelery, square holes where a modern coin of the day was affixed to a threshold of a house, common practice among Native Americans as ornaments, holes through the Kings bust as an act of defiance,two holes which substituted as a button, for security reasons (sewn into fabric), maybe before the advent of pockets or just a kid messing around. It's also another way to aquire coins which would otherwise be unattainable. I haven't seen one, but supposedly there are 7070's that are nothing but. You could likely write a book on the subject.

It depends on the size and severity of the hole and the value and demand of the holed coin. If you have a common 1943 Walker that's been holed, then obviously it would only fetch melt or a bit less, but if you have an extremely rare Draped Bust dollar, for example, then there would be more demand, and it definitely wouldn't go for anywhere near melt. Some collectors like holed coins as an affordable method to attain otherwise extremely pricey coins.

If you ever come across Washington quarters that are common dates with a hole near the edge, it could have been used to cheat the slot or poker machines years ago.

Slot cheats would attach fishing line to the quarter & then tie it around their finger. In a 5 coin machine they would drop the coin into the slot & then pull it back up & drop it again until the machine had 5 credits showing. Then play the machine.

After a while the casinos became aware of this & the machine manufacturers placed a razor like device into the machine. Once the coin was pulled back up it would be cut & the quarter would fall into the machine. I have one here somewhere that came out of a poker machine years ago with the fishing line still attached!

Holes seem to be particularly prevalent in Eisenhower dollars.

Apprehension attacked the psyche of many Union soldiers at the Battle of Cold Harbor in May of 1864 in what is now Mechanicsville, Va. Most were veterans of numerous battles and knew all too well the difficulty of identifying the dead whose bodies were severely maimed and disfigured. They feared that their loved ones, back home, might not know what happened to them if they fell in battle-the troops had noticed far too often their deceased comrades interred in shallow unidentified graves.



And they were right to be worried as it turned out to be one of the bloodiest battles of the war with thousands of Union soldiers killed or wounded in what was a hopeless frontal assault against the fortified troops of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.



Under the sounds of fire from artillery and musketry closing in, many of the soldiers busied themselves pinning pieces of paper with their names written on them, onto their uniforms. Earlier, some of the Union troops had carved wooden tags to identify themselves.



Government issued identification tags, now known as dog tags, were nonexistent during the American Civil War. In May of 1862, John Kennedy, a resident of New York, proposed in a letter to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, that each Union soldier be issued an ID tag. The overture was rejected. The soldiers were on their own.



While there is little anecdotal evidence of Confederate soldiers using some type of body identification, Most if any used real money that they put a hole in and wore as a necklace, a rubbing was taken at the time of making it as to prove it was theirs alone, so some holes are found in odd places on the coin, this was no accident and would have served them well if they had won the war. The truth is the surviving or opposing, soldiers would take them as a prize and this grisly practice ruined most hope of ever being able to identify the person it was intended to identify. they can be found on ebay to this day for sale as a damaged coins. Most people would never know of their sad necessity



a number of different types of Union soldier ID tags and badges have been discovered. The most common appear to be round metal token-type tags. Some are homemade, created by the soldier himself, usually made from a coin. Others were commercially manufactured, in gold or silver, and sold mail-order. Less expensive examples were produced in brass or steel. Sutlers accompanying the army would set up shop along the soldiers' tramp.



The soldiers had good reason to worry that no one would identify them if they died in battle. Of the more than 325,000 Federal soldiers buried in National Cemeteries, almost 149,000 are marked 'unknown.'



On more than one occasion as a father, son or brother left home to shoulder a musket, concerned kin placed a token in the palm of their hands. They had taken care to crudely stamp the recruit's name into the bit of lead, copper or possibly an old coin; giving strict instructions for battle-ready men to secure it tight to their person. Those with means might have followed the advertisements in Harper's or Leslie's magazines for the more ornate and expensive gold or silver pins.