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Pennies From Heaven (Coins Falling Before You)

Not quite Pennies from Heaven, but close.

I got my Weekender bag off the top of the wardrobe at the weekend for a short trip, whilst packing I found 7 $ US dollar bills folded into one of the pockets. These are greasy old bills, folded as if they have been in a back jeans pocket for some time. Last used this bag before Christmas to far flung places, none of which used $ $s.

I thanked the money fairies, secretly hoping that next time it will be more useful currency,

annic

Nice story and lucky you :)

My wife has a habit of purposely losing money around the house...so she can find it in a week, a month, a year?
 
I'd previously posted this on here but can't find it now.

I took my dog to the park and was throwing the ball for her, we lost the ball in some long grass and searched for it without success. After a while I silently asked the little people or the quantum singularities, you pick, if we could have the ball back please?

I then looked down at my feet and there, nestling up against my right foot was a ball, not our ball admittedly but a ball nonetheless. I silently said a thank you, pocketed the ball and off we went.
 
Decades ago I picked up a half-crown and decided to carry it for luck in the watch pocket of my jeans. Some time later I met the former Mr Snail* and a while after we got together there was a discussion about my half crown, or rather whose it was, and why it was going into my pocket and not his (or the other way round - I forget now) because that's MINE!

Turns out that we each had one, even with the same date of 1952.

The marriage is long over and the coins are together in a box in the attic somewhere. One day I'll root them out and give one each to the Snailets.

*it didn't work, then! :p
 
Not quite Pennies from Heaven, but close.

I got my Weekender bag off the top of the wardrobe at the weekend for a short trip, whilst packing I found 7 $ US dollar bills folded into one of the pockets. These are greasy old bills, folded as if they have been in a back jeans pocket for some time. Last used this bag before Christmas to far flung places, none of which used $ $s.

I thanked the money fairies, secretly hoping that next time it will be more useful currency,

annic
Here! what's wrong with dollars? That's a beer and a slice.
 
This is a bit weird so could probably go in The Minor Strangeness thread as well .....

Yesterday I completely raided my penny jar so leaving nothing left in it. Later on that day, I noticed there was still a penny inside it (the jar is a sea through plastic skull novelty Halloween kids thing). On closer inspection, it turned out to be an 1837 Queen Victoria Hanover token, about the same size as a modern British penny just like this one :
hanover1.jpg

hanover2.jpg


My first thought was "Well, I know I tipped that jar upside down so the Mrs must have put it in there to cheer me up or something." but when I asked her and showed it to her, she said she'd never seen it before. I'm always collecting and hoarding things, often small coins from antiques shops, fairs etc but I don't remember seeing this coin before and even if I had, how come it didn't end up in my pocket when I'd earlier completely emptied the jar? ... my other theory was that someone had given it to me by accident in small change but that doesn't add up either because, again, it was in what should have been a completely empty jar .. I'm genuinely perplexed at all of this but I'm glad I've got it !
 
I'm glad I've got it !

I had to find out what exactly it was and the story is interesting!

This is a "To Hanover" token.

"While they were used as game counter pieces and may have seen some circulation as tokens, these were also a political token.

"When Queen Anne died in 1714, she did not have an heir to the throne. So a search through the family tree was made to find the closest suitable heir to the throne. This turned out to be George Louis great grandson of James I and King of Hanover, a German state. He became George I of England but retained his title to Hanover as well as did his successors George II, III, IV, and William IV. Salic Law did not permit a woman to be an heir to titles in Hanover when Princess Victoria succeeded to the British Throne in 1837 on the death of William IV. These titles, which had been held by kings of the United Kingdom since George I, therefore passed to the next male heir, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland.

"He was unpopular in England and it was said that the scars on his face had been caused by his Corsican servant in self-defence, before the Duke murdered him. The Duke is believed to have committed other crimes and, to add to his unpopularity, he was opposed to Parliamentary reform and the emancipation of the Roman Catholics in this country.

"Worst of all he had shown himself to be greedy for the British throne and to have opposed the succession of the people's beloved Victoria.

"To express public pleasure at the Duke's departure, these TO HANOVER tokens were struck at various times over the next twenty years as a satirical gesture and for use as card players’ counters or gaming tokens. The mounted figure on the reverse is the crowned Duke, who in most versions is shown with the face of a monkey.’ "

It's certainly a fascinating apport! :cheer:
 
I found an old coin randomly in my house a while back. Do you think any modern coins make the journey back? Are coins the thing that appears most because they are small? Maybe all the hands they pass through charge them up with something. It's all very interesting.
 
Very intriguing find, Swifty.:cool3:

Not so rarefied but still mysterious is something my OH found the other day. He was walking through the back yard when he spied something glinting in the grass. He bent down to look and found a small heap of Swiss francs. :pop:
We've never owned any Swiss francs!

We've been trying to come up with a narrative to explain their appearance, like a bird dropping them, but this seems almost as wacky as the coins just appearing out of nowhere.
 
Something else semi but mainly nerdy weird coin related from our household .. the Mrs has just noticed that a bag of 50p coins she's got from the bank today are exclusively ALL special edition 'Mr Tiggywinkle' Beatrix Potter design coins .. perhaps the banks are sick of them and of people asking for them? .. it's a bit boring and to do with a wedding that wouldn't have had enough change so she used her own money just in case because of this and that etc ... so she's got 20 'Tiggys' from the bank .. people were trying to get the full set with full on enthusiasm about 6 months ago .. it gets weirder because I've just discovered there's a secret 6th 50p coin, this frog one .. (not counting the ones that are insanely over priced because they've had an over brushing with enamel paint) .. she'll be happy to stop when we get the Jemmima Puddleduck 50p for what's considered the conventional full set .. fucking nerds ..

..anyway .. this frog one ..

jf50p.jpg




http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jeremy-Fish...972964?hash=item3d47860ea4:g:xEMAAOSwlhZZcnlh
 
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Here! what's wrong with dollars? That's a beer and a slice.
Sorry LB, should have explained I live in England and have vowed never to set foot on American soil again due to the unpleasantness of your customs staff.

I have just found a Turkish tenner to add to the collection- hiding in my sock drawer.
 
Sorry LB, should have explained I live in England and have vowed never to set foot on American soil again due to the unpleasantness of your customs staff.
I get that. One of the best ways to ease past any official is to be social, chatty and build a social bridge. It's a potential security risk, therefore US customs officials appear to be trained not to fall for it at all. They (in my experience) are unfailingly polite but distant and reserved. Good thing too.

I flew the week after 9/11 and on both my US internal flights I was pulled out of the boarding queue and searched again, shoes off and all, and also had my (hold luggage) suitcase opened and searched in front of me. No-one was ever rude or hostile, although during that period most gates had a guy with an assault rifle on the other (air) side.

Having said that, at Tampa once, I saw a chap forcibly removed from the 'experienced traveller' queue because he hadn't organised his sh!t for the metal detector gate. I didn't mind that either. I have literally heard people say "I didn't know coins counted as metal" or I didn't know jewellery counted as metal" and numerous variations on "I didn't think my shoes counted as shoes". And don't get me started on the people who don't organise any of that stuff (metal off person, shoes off, laptop out of bag etc) until they are actually standing by the gate. Strip search them all I say. F*ckwits.
 
I get that. One of the best ways to ease past any official is to be social, chatty and build a social bridge. It's a potential security risk, therefore US customs officials appear to be trained not to fall for it at all. They (in my experience) are unfailingly polite but distant and reserved. Good thing too.

I flew the week after 9/11 and on both my US internal flights I was pulled out of the boarding queue and searched again, shoes off and all, and also had my (hold luggage) suitcase opened and searched in front of me. No-one was ever rude or hostile, although during that period most gates had a guy with an assault rifle on the other (air) side.

Having said that, at Tampa once, I saw a chap forcibly removed from the 'experienced traveller' queue because he hadn't organised his sh!t for the metal detector gate. I didn't mind that either. I have literally heard people say "I didn't know coins counted as metal" or I didn't know jewellery counted as metal" and numerous variations on "I didn't think my shoes counted as shoes". And don't get me started on the people who don't organise any of that stuff (metal off person, shoes off, laptop out of bag etc) until they are actually standing by the gate. Strip search them all I say. F*ckwits.

I have no objection to reasonable security measures, and have seen more than enough giant nail care kits being the subject of heated debate at airports, not to mention knitting needles and boxes of china. People have some strange ideas about cabin baggage.
For me the final straw was on my last trip in 2012, problem was with an "official" talking around a mouth full of gum and looking downwards. Could not understand a word, I asked politely if she would mind looking up as I am a little deaf and she got quite aggressive and even less comprehensible.

Eventually worked out that she was demanding to know where my other children were- my older sons were still showing on my 10 year passport, but being too grown up for Disney were not with me. Daughter, being much younger had her own passport. She was also subject to some rather aggressive questioning which she found hard to understand and rather scary.

I was not the only person having problems with that particular queue, the group on duty there seemed to take particular pleasure in upsetting people. Hopefully the US have invested in training their customs staff

For those of you not in UK we have 10 year passports, prior to 1999 children could be included on an adult passport, so it was possible to have some children on one parents passport, some on another's and some with their own passport.
 
Sorry LB, should have explained I live in England and have vowed never to set foot on American soil again due to the unpleasantness of your customs staff.
Me too! The one time I visit America, and I encounter difficulties with the DHS. They searched me, yelled in my face and delayed my connection. I missed my connecting flight, so had to stay overnight in a crappy hotel. Breathed a sigh of relief when I got back. The DHS don't want tourists spending their money over there, so it seems.
 
I don't doubt you folks, but I've not had a bad experience in well over a score of trips to the USA.
 
Having said that, at Tampa once, I saw a chap forcibly removed from the 'experienced traveller' queue because he hadn't organised his sh!t for the metal detector gate. I didn't mind that either. I have literally heard people say "I didn't know coins counted as metal" or I didn't know jewellery counted as metal" and numerous variations on "I didn't think my shoes counted as shoes". And don't get me started on the people who don't organise any of that stuff (metal off person, shoes off, laptop out of bag etc) until they are actually standing by the gate. Strip search them all I say. F*ckwits.

HA funny that. I have one or two ...err.. "adornments" hidden away and my dear dear departed wife, (who could deal with absolutely anything thrown at her ) threw a wobbler at the prospect of me being hauled away from the detector gate. Fortunately I got through "intact".
 
I have no objection to reasonable security measures, and have seen more than enough giant nail care kits being the subject of heated debate at airports, not to mention knitting needles and boxes of china. People have some strange ideas about cabin baggage.
For me the final straw was on my last trip in 2012, problem was with an "official" talking around a mouth full of gum and looking downwards. Could not understand a word, I asked politely if she would mind looking up as I am a little deaf and she got quite aggressive and even less comprehensible.

Eventually worked out that she was demanding to know where my other children were- my older sons were still showing on my 10 year passport, but being too grown up for Disney were not with me. Daughter, being much younger had her own passport. She was also subject to some rather aggressive questioning which she found hard to understand and rather scary.

I was not the only person having problems with that particular queue, the group on duty there seemed to take particular pleasure in upsetting people. Hopefully the US have invested in training their customs staff

For those of you not in UK we have 10 year passports, prior to 1999 children could be included on an adult passport, so it was possible to have some children on one parents passport, some on another's and some with their own passport.
Nope haven't invested a penny.

But you should try El Al.
 
There has been a fifty pence piece sitting on my downstairs bathroom floor for a couple of weeks. I assume it was dropped by Son Number 2 when he was here minding the dog while I was in London. I just left it, no pressing reason to pick it up, thought I'd just leave it until I do my next clean through (downstairs bathroom isn't used much, belongs mostly to the cats, and is not in urgent need of a clean). Yesterday I went in to feed Big Fat Cat - and there was a twenty pence piece on the floor. The fifty pence had been moved further along the floor and where it had been was the twenty pence.

I did think of leaving it there to see what the next move in the game would be (a five pence?), but I picked up both it and the fifty pence, because I reasoned it might be my late mother, disgusted at my standards of housekeeping, tipping me to clean up.
 
There has been a fifty pence piece sitting on my downstairs bathroom floor for a couple of weeks. I assume it was dropped by Son Number 2 when he was here minding the dog while I was in London. I just left it, no pressing reason to pick it up, thought I'd just leave it until I do my next clean through (downstairs bathroom isn't used much, belongs mostly to the cats, and is not in urgent need of a clean). Yesterday I went in to feed Big Fat Cat - and there was a twenty pence piece on the floor. The fifty pence had been moved further along the floor and where it had been was the twenty pence.

I did think of leaving it there to see what the next move in the game would be (a five pence?), but I picked up both it and the fifty pence, because I reasoned it might be my late mother, disgusted at my standards of housekeeping, tipping me to clean up.
Hopefully, there will be a £2 coin coming along.
 
Tony Stark nods approvingly.
I'd love to own that penny, I'd frame it with a picture of the gentleman and hang it on the wall, it bothers me though that none of his descendants want to keep it? .. I know everyone needs cash money these days but that penny is something close to unique and also tied to the family's bloodline. I wouldn't sell it if I were them.
 
I agree -- I'd make it into jewelry or something.
Not quite Pennies from Heaven, but close.

I got my Weekender bag off the top of the wardrobe at the weekend for a short trip, whilst packing I found 7 $ US dollar bills folded into one of the pockets. These are greasy old bills, folded as if they have been in a back jeans pocket for some time. Last used this bag before Christmas to far flung places, none of which used $ $s.

I thanked the money fairies, secretly hoping that next time it will be more useful currency,

annic
There are other places where people use dollars. I was traveling in Germany near a US military base in 2002, and at the local bar they took dollar bills. I thought it was very stupid to pay in dollars, as at that time, they were worth more than a Euro (those were the days!)
In Venezuela they are using dollars now -- an extreme case, but even in other countries where circumstances aren't so dire, you can use dollars sometimes.
 
I'd love to own that penny, I'd frame it with a picture of the gentleman and hang it on the wall, it bothers me though that none of his descendants want to keep it? .. I know everyone needs cash money these days but that penny is something close to unique and also tied to the family's bloodline. I wouldn't sell it if I were them.
Maybe. I sold medals belong to my grandfather - one year's tuition fees - and while that's a shame, as a person he was 'hard to like' so any sense of fealty I might have had was tempered by the unpleasant experience of his company and the knowledge of the emotional damage he did to his sons.
 
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