Yesterday I received something fairly rare in the change the clerk gave me for my bottle of Dr Pepper purchase.
It was a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln.
But not just any penny.
It was made in 1919, so it is 93 years old. I guess Abe would have said "Four score and thirteen years ago" instead of the words "ninety three", or he might have gone with a more complex "Five score minus seven years ago", since he was fond of the number seven with his scores. Abe was rather unpredictable, a loose cannon in a day when cannon were more common and people knew how to keep score. I have never received a coin that old before as just change from a business transaction.
Update: 2012.05.13 Rob Z Tobor posted a picture of his chicken sitting in front of a web page with my coin!
You can visit his website at ...The Slightly Eccentric Diary of Rob Z Tobor...
Update: 2nd Photo
That should reaLLy make Rob's chicken wonder what is going on ....
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13 comments:
Super cool, I had a friend who was a change checking fanatic, he loved that and wheat pennies.
fmcgmccllc: I am not much of a change fanatic anymore, I just happened to see the wheat emblem and flipped it over, plus it looked a little more corroded than normal.
The flash photography actuaLLy made the coin look better than it reaLLy is. I tried to make the coin stand on its edge to photograph it better, but the edges were too rounded, so I grabbed a "large" screwdriver from my set of miniature screw drivers to use as a prop to hold the penny vertical, so there is actuaLLy a screw driver behind the penny in the picture! Some times the elderly need a little support. .. ... .... .....
What a treasure! My husband is always looking through his change for coins like that. Glad you spotted it~
You know, I don't think I have, either...
Pearl
I have an image of AB Linc drinking screwdrivers now for support.
I was told the other day that a British 2p piece is worth more in scrap now that its face value of 2p. Not entirely sure if that is true but it seems likely and therefore seems like a good reason to collect loads, sell them for scrap and them turn the cash made including profit back into 2p's and then sell them for scrap etc. etc. until we run out of 2p pieces.
Rob: Let know won ever tell ewe that ewe have not superior in tell agents in order to come up with a brilliant piece of monetary melt down turn it a round, soon you will bee richer and more power fool than even Rupert de Murdock of Telephonic Spy Games Incorporated. (I wrote this in secret code so others would not be able to understand it as well.)
That's so cool! I love collecting coins from the places I've been too. I think I still have some cents somewhere from my last trip to the states, and I still have shekels in my purse from my trip to Jerusalem :)
The code worked Brill Mr ESB
Rob: (audible) hahahahah-yeyeyeyey
Explanation: the y is kinda like an h rotated 180 degrees and the e is like an a the same way, so 'hah' is like 'yey' rotated, especiaLLy if you use an Italics font. So with it rotated it kinda goes along with the 'rolling on floor laughing certain body parts off'. Hope you are having a great Mother's Day Eve.
I noticed today that the coin appears to have a lot of wear, notice how the side of his face has been smoothed off.
I wonder how many times more valuable this penny was 93 years ago versus today? I should try to find out what comparable gallon of kerosene cost back then versus the $4 a gallon diesel of today. One part in four hundred, so a penny would buy roughly one fourth of a fluid ounce, I am not eXactly sure if that is close to a tablespoon or not, but something of that order of magnitude. I should also check the stock price for a kerosene maker, as the company that hired me a long time ago just recently became a company again on its own being split apart from a merger. I have a job application in with them, so hopefuLLy something positive happens.
I checked just now and the oil company was started in 1917, two years older than my penny. It had an asset value of $3 million dollars at the time of incorporation and was worth several billion, with a B, when it was merged with another oil company in the year 2002. So a penny invested in that company would have more than kept up with inflation.
I have a cunning plan Mr ESB that will make this even more complex.
Rob: Let's see if we have the same cunning plan. I had earlier thought about us repeating the process and I was hoping that you would think of that as weLL.
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