Holed Coins

plagiarism, the highest form of flattery (unless you get caught)

The vast majority of modern holed coins I have come across seem to be the result of a kid who found dad's power drill. I did not see it personally, but someone (either here or another forum) found a Kennedy half holed through JFK's temple with the words "OMG they shot him again!" written around the coin in sharpie.

I have found a few halves and bicentennial quarters that were once in a necklace until it was broken up and spent at one point in the past.

The story about the civil war reminds me of one I read in a book I had a long time ago. Back in the Napoleonic wars, a young British soldier was drafted and called to the frontlines. Fearing for his life, he took what money he had and hired a local blacksmith to make a chain mail vest out of the cheapest metal he had available...in this case, British pennies held together with some wire. I don't know how well it worked, but the vest is currently in a museum with a musket ball lodged into one of the coins.

It can't be true............




Wonder if it was to ward off evil or to advertise their wealth. In some cultures women wear expensive jewelry to show off family wealth or to have portable wealth in case they leave suddenly.

I have finally found a holed Lincoln Memorial cent piece that looks like it was done be a .22 round. However, it was really centered almost to perfectly so it could have been drilled by some kid. Since I didn't need it for anything I put it my return to the wild jar that will be returned to the bank soon. I honestly wonder if the coinstar machine at the bank will accept it. It not, maybe I'll either spend it or keep it as a conversation piece

Someone decided at some after 1951 to make some jewellery out of this Norge 10 Ore (Its already holed!). Its a silvery coin...I took the photo under table-lamp light.

Allow me to introduce you to the Kuna people. They are a native people that live on the northeastern coast of Panama.



The Kuna men would often take work as far back as the 18th century and mostly in the 19th and early 20th century as deckhands on sailing ships. A custom developed where their wives would wear a piece of jewelry that consisted of a bunch of holed coins on strings separated by beads usually as a gorget around the neck. Many of these coins were later sold to US coin collectors in Panama and made their way into the general numismatic markets.

If you see coins from the 18th to the first half of the 20th century with a hole in it, it may have come from a Kuna family. By the mid 20th century the Kuna economy become more focused on tourism and handicrafts and so the tradition came to an end.

You will still find Kuna women wearing a facsimile of this manner of jewelry using brass or silver-colored metal discs to this day.