Some interesting pocket change

My old Netcom home page has been around since the late 90s and has been largely neglected for the better part of the last decade. I keep it around for posterity, but there’s a lot of linkrot there. I had moved some pages over to my blog, but not others. This is one of the last few remaining pages that haven’t been migrated over. The last time this page was touched was back in 2003 for some minor link editing, but most of the content dates back to around 1995 or 1996

Ok, so you’ve been out shopping or running errands all day. If you’re anything like me, you’ve managed to accumulate a pocket full of change from spending money you shouldn’t have. What do you do with it? Well, if you’re like most other people, you dig it all out, dump it into the change jar and don’t give it a second thought. My change jar happens to be a yellow piggy bank.

But, if you look closely, you’ll be surprised at what you can find in loose pocket change. Here are some of the coins I’ve found in mine. The unusualness mileage may vary for you, but for around here these are fairly unique. Well, for me anyway. I’ve buffed them up a bit so they look nice and shiny for you.

Coins are not shown at their actual or relative sizes

Coins from other places

		Here’s one from Barbados. This was one of my first acquisitions. I discovered it quite by accident when I was cleaning out my pig and rolling coins to take to the bank.
		A 10 cent piece from the Netherlands. I stumbled onto this one as I was rummaging for quarters for laundry. It’s a pretty small coin too, 1.5 cm in diameter (0.59 inches for you non-metric people). The date on the coin is 1957, so I would imagine they might look a bit different now. According to Psylocke_, I might be able to get a stick of gum with this…
		A small 25 øre piece from Denmark. Found it while I was dumping the change out of my pocket.
		Here’s a real live Susan B Anthony dollar coin that I acquired on a recent trip to NYC. This was in the change that I got from a machine when I was purchasing a ticket for the Long Island Railroad. I can see why nobody likes them…they’re a lot like quarters.
		This is a coin that I found while rummaging through my pocket looking for change to pay for a muffin at work. I’ve been told that it comes from England.
		This coin is my first find since moving to the US 3 years ago. Stumbled upon this one while counting and rolling the contents of my change jar to take to the bank.

Canadian coins

This is a series of quarters that was minted to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Canada as a country. Each of the 10 provinces and 2 territories had their own coin. Each coin depicts a small scene which represents the culture and land in each province/territory. On the loonie are a some people in front of the Peace Tower, located at the Parliament buildings in Ottawa.

When they first came out, people would buy rolls and rolls of quarters and hoard them, so nowadays it’s pretty rare to find one in your pocket. I’ve only managed to acquire 9 of the 12 province coins, plus a couple of loonies ($1 coins for those of you not in the know). I’ve also included links to the closest thing I could find for a home page for each province, just in case you wanted to do some touring.

British Columbia	Saskatchewan	Ontario	Nova Scotia	New Brunswick
Prince Edward Island	Newfoundland	Northwest Territories	The Yukon

and the loonie.

This one is the RCMP quarter, minted to celebrate 100 years of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It’s kind of an old coin, minted back in 1973 I think.

Miscellaneous coins

		This one is a subway token for the New York City subway system. I just happened to have one left over from a trip I made to New York in June 94.
		This goes waaay back (entirely too far back) to my days as a mall rat and arcade junkie. It’s an arcade token from somewhere. I forget where it came from.