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See A Penny, Pick It Up (Superstition / Luck Related To Money Found)

Beyond 113, we get to join the Illuminati. :twisted:
 
Oh, I always pick pennies up with no hint of embarrassment. Even through I'm quite arthritic and bending over is a bit of a performance. I found a really shiny new one just the other day in the train station. Loads of people must have passed it by. I throw all my coppers into an old coffee jar. When it's full I take it down to Morrison's and run it through one of those big coin machines. It usually nets somewhere between £3.50 and a fiver. The machine spits out a voucher that you can use towards paying for your purchases at the checkout. Last time I used my takings to treat myself to some Loyd Grossman pasta sauces that would normally be too extravagant for me. Very nice they were too.
 
I found another penny last night ... forget those machines graylien, they tax/charge you, just take them to your local convenience store instead that the banks charge for asking for change .. the shops are grateful !
 
Well, I've been put off doing that since a friend got given very short shrift at his local convenience store for trying to pay with a load of coppers. He'd even bagged them up in those little bank bags for them.
 
Yeah, that's my experience too.
They don't like the hassle of counting it all out.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Yes, that's how I read it originally. But I asked as I found it exceedingly odd, given that you said at the end of the experiment only a few had been taken. Surely, if you bend down to take one, you'd actually take them all? I genuinely struggle to think of a plausible reason why only a few went.
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Well, it is possible the pennies weren't taken, exactly, but were perhaps kicked into the gutter by accident, or something like that. Or maybe whoever took them didn't want to be greedy. :)

davidplankton said:
Either,
a) They are called something else in the States.
b) You, and everyone that you know, have never moved house.
c) Everything you own fits into one backpack.
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A., they are called "movers" in the states. I always imagined "removal men" were removing something more dire than furniture. Like maybe toxic waste or bodies. :eek:
 
'Industrial coffee cake - for testing purposes only'. LOL :rofl:
 
How hygienic is it to pick something up off the ground? Maybe that's a factor in not bothering.
 
It's weird that I adhere to some superstitions, since I am an atheist, but I do. It's lucky to find a penny, and when I do I put it in my shoe. I have worn some pennies in my tennies for years.
 
GNC said:
How hygienic is it to pick something up off the ground? Maybe that's a factor in not bothering.
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Good point ... as long as you don't lick your fingers afterwards. When I was a nipper, I needed a wee so my Mum told me to go around the back of a building we were walking past ... where I spotted about three weeks of pocket money on the floor. I ran back round to tell my Mum there was loads of money on the floor so she came round to have a look .. her first disappointment would have been realising that it was probably only about three pounds there .. her larger disappointment would have been me not mentioning the large turd next to them.

I wasn't allowed to pick up the coins :(
 
Swifty said:
Good point ... as long as you don't lick your fingers afterwards. When I was a nipper, I needed a wee so my Mum told me to go around the back of a building we were walking past ... where I spotted about three weeks of pocket money on the floor. I ran back round to tell my Mum there was loads of money on the floor so she came round to have a look .. her first disappointment would have been realising that it was probably only about three pounds there .. her larger disappointment would have been me not mentioning the large turd next to them.

I wasn't allowed to pick up the coins :(
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Where there's muck there's brass.
 
Stuart Certain said:
Hasn't worked for me. In my experience, the modern version seems more accurate.
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That's because you need a comedy container to throw them in when you get home man .. I use a plastic skull pint glass that I bought from Morrisons a few Halloweens ago and also your bank will be happy to give you a wad of those shrapnel bags so you can make them into pounds as you go along. When else will you get something for free from your bank?. I'm currently at the 2 quid (bagged) and some loose coins and a few cheeky 5p coins for good measure. I usually crack at the 8 quid mark. It's fun and sort of a hobby on the side because it's a bit sad but at the end of the day, you get free moneys :)
 
Swifty said:
That's because you need a comedy container to throw them in when you get home man .. I use a plastic skull pint glass that I bought from Morrisons a few Halloweens ago and also your bank will be happy to give you a wad of those shrapnel bags so you can make them into pounds as you go along. When else will you get something for free from your bank?. I'm currently at the 2 quid (bagged) and some loose coins and a few cheeky 5p coins for good measure. I usually crack at the 8 quid mark. It's fun and sort of a hobby on the side because it's a bit sad but at the end of the day, you get free moneys :)
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In your years of collecting pennies, have you noticed a change in luck: depending on whether the coin lay face-up or head-down? SC
 
Stuart Certain said:
In your years of collecting pennies, have you noticed a change in luck: depending on whether the coin lay face-up or head-down? SC
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I never pay any attention to that, I just pick the little fuckers up! ... I probably also will do that from now on though. :)
 
Swifty said:
Most of the coins I pick up I find both inside and outside our local shop, the school kids can't be bothered with them and just chuck them on the floor.
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Ha! You beat me to it...was going to add that it's the fashion amongst the children round these parts to receive their change then chuck it into the road. Bizarre.

I always pick up a penny, unless it's in a particularly insanitary-looking location. Oddly, although I feel a tiny bit self-conscious doing this - and have contrived a rather elegant sweeping movement to retrieve the coin, followed by a triumphant flip 'n' mid-air catch - I usually ruin it by exclaiming 'ooh, a penny!' out loud. Often to myself.
 
Andy_X said:
Ha! You beat me to it...was going to add that it's the fashion amongst the children round these parts to receive their change then chuck it into the road. Bizarre.
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I've no idea either. Either that or they theatrically tell us to put the change in the charity box. Fair play to them for that but I expect that'll 'change' when they're renting that first flat.
 
Swifty said:
I've no idea either. Either that or they theatrically tell us to put the change in the charity box. Fair play to them for that but I expect that'll 'change' when they're renting that first flat.
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They sure will. BTW I see what you did there :D It does seem to be a weird way of signalling a financial status so comfortable that it transcends common sense*. I was treating myself to a burger from a burger van a few months ago when a gaggle of young lads at the front of the queue made a show of launching their change at the feet of passing shoppers. Naturally I retrieved it and thanked them in a jokey way. I think one of them was considering whether it might be a good idea to call me a pikey or something but thought better of it :p

*...unless it's some sort of superstition.
 
Andy_X said:
They sure will. BTW I see what you did there :D It does seem to be a weird way of signalling a financial status so comfortable that it transcends common sense*. I was treating myself to a burger from a burger van a few months ago when a gaggle of young lads at the front of the queue made a show of launching their change at the feet of passing shoppers. Naturally I retrieved it and thanked them in a jokey way. I think one of them was considering whether it might be a good idea to call me a pikey or something but thought better of it :p

*...unless it's some sort of superstition.
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Maybe those lads have the right idea? ( chucking their coins away.) Youngsters these days never seem short of cash.
 
It's a reasonably affluent area round here, but I'd be interested to know if this is country-wide behaviour in the UK...

I must admit that we used to do a similar thing at that sort of age where we'd chuck a coin on the ground as a game to see who could get to it first. The victor would then have to endure some very un-PC jibes which I won't elaborate on. But we wouldn't have dreamt of just throwing our pocket money away.
 
Andy_X said:
It's a reasonably affluent area round here, but I'd be interested to know if this is country-wide behaviour in the UK...

I must admit that we used to do a similar thing at that sort of age where we'd chuck a coin on the ground as a game to see who could get to it first. The victor would then have to endure some very un-PC jibes which I won't elaborate on. But we wouldn't have dreamt of just throwing our pocket money away.
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Interesting activity for an Owl. Are there any Magpies in Larch Forest?
 
Of course I had the advantage of utter silence followed by bone-chilling shreiking and flashing talons. You gotta play to your strengths...especially when those fecking magpies* are about :mad:

*or 'Blingchickens', as we call 'em around here.
 
I pick up pennies out of superstition! Then they all go in the 'copper jar' for playing Newmarket at Christmas.
 
Stuart Certain said:
You could always exclaim: 'ooh, a pound!' That would wind other people up.
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I'd occasionally wind up a gf when walking about town. I'd palm a pound coin then stoop down and proclaim "Look what I've found!" and show the coin. Wound her up a lot because she never found money as much as I did.
 
Andy_X said:
Oddly, although I feel a tiny bit self-conscious doing this - and have contrived a rather elegant sweeping movement to retrieve the coin
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In so doing, you would be meeting one of the employment styles required to be demonstrated by all employees working at Disney theme parks....any rubbish/trash/money spotted by staff (viz "cast members") must be scooped-up, immediately, with a sweeping flourish. No bending, or paused picky-pickups.

http://guff.com/16-secret-rules-for-disney-employees
 
Ermintrude said:
In so doing, you would be meeting one of the employment styles required to be demonstrated by all employees working at Disney theme parks....any rubbish/trash/money spotted by staff (viz "cast members") must be scooped-up, immediately, with a sweeping flourish. No bending, or paused picky-pickups.

http://guff.com/16-secret-rules-for-disney-employees
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That link doesn't say anything about picking stuff up with a flourish, but it's a good idea. How about an operatic "TA-DA!" into the bargain?
 
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