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Nerdy reputation or not, coin collecting (otherwise known as numismatics) has been a hobby since the days of ancient Rome. If you’re not a member of the enthusiast crowd, though, knowing a thing or two about the following faves just might be enough to help you rub elbows with true aficionados.
1. The Stupidest Coin the Government Ever Made: The Racketeer Nickel
(Image credit: Hephaestos at the English language Wikipedia)
In 1883, the United States issued a newly designed five-cent piece called the “V nickel.” The coin got its name because the value was indicated on the back simply with the Roman numeral ‘V,’ sans the word “cents.” After all, it was obvious it was a nickel, right? Apparently not. Turns out, the V nickel was the same size as a U.S. $5 gold piece, and both coins featured a bust of Lady Liberty on the front.
It wasn’t long before light bulbs started going off over the heads of con men all across America. Within weeks of the V’s debut, crooks were gold-plating the nickels and palming them off as $5 gold pieces. Meanwhile, government officials scoffed at the notion that anyone would fall for such an obvious hoax. Unfortunately, they were wrong again. Despite the gold-plated nickels not looking like $5 coins and not being nearly as heavy, most people didn’t notice, because the gold coins were rarely used in everyday purchases.
By April 1883, “gilded nickels” were both a national joke and a growing concern for commerce and law enforcement. The U.S. Secret Service made arrests in 10 states related to the scam. In one raid, they seized a “half bushel” of coins waiting to be plated. But all good things come to an end, and con artists had a hard time getting enough new nickels to keep the racket going. Finally, embarrassed officials put an end to the scam by halting production of the nickels until new dies were prepared. This time, the redesigned backs read “V cents.” Today, the V nickel remains a favorite among coin collectors.
2. The Coin You Carry in Bundles: The Kissi Penny
Money hasn’t always been strictly confined to coins and bills. In Biblical times, for example, people used sheep and cattle as currency. Of course, because deceased livestock don’t paste that well into scrapbooks, numismatists have to draw the line somewhere. And that’s where the phrase “odd and curious money” comes in. It’s a numismatist category used to classify various pre-cash societies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.
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Canada’s Royal Mint has introduced a line of quarter dollar coins with native cryptids on them. One one side, you can find Queen Elizabeth II. On the other, you’ll see variously Memphré, which is a reptilian monster that inhabits a lake in Quebec, Mishepishu, which is a water panther of Lake Superior, or the more internationally famous Sasquatch.
Link -via Geekosystem
That’s not bark, but coins driven into the surface of a tree! In several locations in the UK, people have stuck coins into “wishing trees”. Colossal has a picture roundup of these oddly lovely trees and The Guardian provides some historical information about the practice, which apparently dates back to at least the Eighteenth Century.
Image Gallery and News Article | Photo by Flickr user lens buddy
Superhero Bust Banks – $15.95
Saving your pennies is hard work. Don’t trust your coins to just any piggy bank. You need a Superhero Bust Bank from the NeatoShop to protect your loose change. These banks mean business.
The Superhero Bust Bank is available in:
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Superhero items.
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Stacey Lee Weber does some amazing work with coins. She hammers them into a multitude of objects, including flags, bells, ladders, plumb bobs, hammers, and screwdrivers. This tape measure was made from nickels, silver, silver dimes, and silver quarters. Link -via Dude Craft | Photo: Larry Sanders
The Dutch Royal Mint in Utrecht is celebrating its 100th anniversary by releasing silver 5€ and gold 10€ coins. It has been reported that they include functional QR codes and are legal tender in the Eurozone.
Link -via CrunchGear | Image: The Rich Times
Oh no! This place is infested with coins! This short stop-motion animation was produced by Olly Newport. -via Laughing Squid
When we participate in the flipping of a coin, the command given is to predict the outcome as “heads or tails.” For centuries most American and British coins have featured a bust or profile of a head of state on one side of the coin (two-cent pieces, three-cent pieces, and shield nickels would be exceptions). For the other side, the OED explains with a citation from 1810 that it is called a tail “without respect to the figure upon it.”
When the coin flipped comes from another country, however, the terminology may change. When the kopeck above is flipped, the choice is “lattice or eagle.” The figure on the obverse is a monogram of the ruler, but to the common people it was viewed as a lattice. Other countries offer other choices:
For a Hungarian it is so obvious to call this game fej vagy írás, “head or script” that he would not believe if somebody told him that no other people says it exactly like this. The Germans say Kopf oder Zahl, the Spaniards and Italians Cara o cruz and Testa o croce, the Poles – just like Russians, and obviously after the same kopeiki – Orze? czy reszka, the Irishmen Head or harps, the Greeks (crown or script), and the ancient Latins Navia aut caput (ship or head [of Janus]), depending on the actual designs of their coins.
What comparable phrases have readers of Neatorama encountered in their home countries?
Link.
Addenda from Neatorama readers:
Bojan Zarkovic – Serbians also use “head or script.”
Joris Slob – the Dutch use “kop of munt” (head or coin) because the queen is on one side and the number of cents/euro on the other.
nunov – its “face or crown” in Portugal.
Informantxgirl – in Thailand, it’s “heads or pinky (koy)” – the “pinky” side showing a building or monument.
Paavo Ojala – in Finnish its “kruuna vai klaava,” words borrowed from Swedish (“krona eller klave”). Some people don’t know which word means which side.
DW – in Mexico it’s “aguila o sol” (eagle or sun).
Tom T – in Portguese it’s “Cara ou Coroa” (Head or Crown) – even though there is no crown on current coins.
nadiv – in Hebrew it’s Etz (tree) or Pali. “These two terms come for the time of the British mandate over Palestine. The English “heads” was transformed to Etz, even though there’s currently no head or tree on that side of the coin. Pali comes from Palestine, the writing on the other side of the coins back then.”
cforeroo – in Colombia: Cara o sello (face or seal); commonly the flip is called ‘carisellazo.’
Anton aka LT – Russians call “oryol ili reshka” (eagle or face).
Stubb – in Norway, it’s “kron eller mynt” (crown or coin/value).
Madmolf – the French say “pile ou face” (mark made by seal of the coinmaker vs. head).
Bex H – Aussies call “heads or tails.” There are animals on the “tails” side of all coins except the newer $2 ones, which feature an aboriginal person; The Black Adder says when these are flipped, the call is “black or white.”
Shrinath – in Tamil Nadu (a state in South India), it’s called “poova thalaya,” meaning “head or flower.”
A hat tip to everyone above. I’ll keep updating the addenda as more information arrives.
The photo above is from a 2008 Amsterdam art installation created by the Sagmeister group out of 250,000 coins. In the links, you can find a time-lapse video of the creation of the display. The captions read, in part:
Over the course of 8 days, and with the help of over 100 volunteers, the coins were sorted into 4 different shades and carefully placed over a 300 sqm area.
The coin mural spelled out the sentence “Obsessions Make My Life Worse and My Work Better.”
After completion the coins were left free and unguarded for the public to interact with.
Link via DudeCraft | Photo: Sagmeister
Three years ago, Alex blogged about the largest gold coin in the world. This one million dollar Canadian gold coin weighs 220 lb and is worth about four times its face value. And now it’s up for sale:
The 100-kilogram Gold Maple Leaf was, in fact, recognized by Guinness World Records in October 2007 as the planet’s largest gold coin.
The four sold that year cost the buyers more than $2.3 million each based on the coin’s intrinsic value at the time. The $1-million coin contains 3,215 troy ounces of gold.
But the price of gold has nearly doubled since then. Earlier this week, it reached a record high of $1,254.50 U.S. per ounce. Some analysts have predicted the price could hit $1,500 U.S. within a year.
At Friday’s price of about $1,230 U.S. per ounce, the metal value of the coin to be sold in Austria was just over $4 million Cdn.
Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Dorotheum
Over 250 coins dating from the time of Alexander the Great were found in northern Syria, according to Youssef Kanjo, the Syrian archaeologist in charge of excavations at Aleppo. They were unearthed by a local man who was digging a foundation for a home!
The coins date from the Hellenic period, which ranges from 4th to the 1st centuries B.C. after Macedonian warrior-king Alexander the Great spread Greek culture into Middle East and beyond with his conquests.
Kanjo added that the box contained two groups of coins, 137 “tetra” drachmas (four drachmas) and 115 single drachma coins.
One side of the tetra drachma coins depicts Alexander the Great, while the other side shows the Greek god Zeus sitting on a throne with an eagle perched on his extended arm.
Some of the coins bear the inscription King Alexander in Greek, while others say Alexander or carry the name of King Philip, most likely referring to his father.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
It’s Wednesday, the fourth day of the week. The binary number for 4 is 100. We use “heads” for 1 and “tails” for 0. So the left hand column has (top to bottom) heads-tails-tails = 100 binary = 4th day of week = Wednesday. (If you don’t already speak binary, no biggie. Start here or here and join us in a minute.)
It’s December, month 12, and 12 in binary is 1100, so the middle column is heads-heads-tails-tails.
Finally, the last column is all heads, since it’s December 31, and 31 decimal = 11111 binary.
Got that? Me neither. Link
On the Isle of Man Scotland, the government has commissioned a three-sided coin to commemorate King Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs’ exhibition at the O2 arena in London.
The copper coin which bears a portrait of the Queen and an image of Tutankhamun, is marketed by the Isle of Man’s Post Office as “a unique gift” that is “a must for all Egyptologists” and costs £15 ($30).
On one side, it shows Tutankhamun, the teenage pharaoh who died 3,330 years ago, and on the other, a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.
John Smith, the general manager of Pobjoy Mint, which is striking the coins, said he was “delighted to launch the first ever pyramid coin”.
Mr Smith also added that no limit had been set on the number of coins that could be produced.
Link: Telegraph
