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

One for the coincidence thread, perhaps. I read this thread this morning before work, so the topic was fresh in my mind. Just how low was the coin we would stoop to pick up? I like the idea of mopping up after profligate teens, contemptuous of change.

A colleague reported at lunchtime that her daughter had fished a ten-pound note out of a puddle that morning.

There was no discussion of where it was or the notion of returning it: Finders Keepers is the rule these days!

I wonder how high we would go before conscience clicked in? :confused:
 
JamesWhitehead said:
One for the coincidence thread, perhaps. I read this thread this morning before work, so the topic was fresh in my mind. Just how low was the coin we would stoop to pick up? I like the idea of mopping up after profligate teens, contemptuous of change.

A colleague reported at lunchtime that her daughter had fished a ten-pound note out of a puddle that morning.

There was no discussion of where it was or the notion of returning it: Finders Keepers is the rule these days!

I wonder how high we would go before conscience clicked in? :confused:
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Trouble is; unless the note has someones name and address on it, whom are they to return it to?
 
GNC said:
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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.. or perhaps a comedy squeaky fart?

I remember when my parents took me to the California Disneyland, we were just getting on a boat ride when I over heard an employee say in a monotone voice "You. Are all. Going to. Die." :rofl:
 
JamesWhitehead said:
One for the coincidence thread, perhaps. I read this thread this morning before work, so the topic was fresh in my mind. Just how low was the coin we would stoop to pick up? I like the idea of mopping up after profligate teens, contemptuous of change.

A colleague reported at lunchtime that her daughter had fished a ten-pound note out of a puddle that morning.

There was no discussion of where it was or the notion of returning it: Finders Keepers is the rule these days!

I wonder how high we would go before conscience clicked in? :confused:
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Oh come on! seriously? .. a puddle?. Where would she even return it to? .. the wet money enthusiast society?. I think her soul will safely still go to heaven on this one.
 
In the eyes of the law, picking up any cash off the floor is a crime - "theft by finding". Every discovery should be handed in at a police station, and if nobody has claimed it after three months it's yours. Thing is, if you turn up at the cop shop and try to claim a note or coin you lost, you've got to prove it was yours in the first place.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
In the eyes of the law, picking up any cash off the floor is a crime - "theft by finding". Every discovery should be handed in at a police station, and if nobody has claimed it after three months it's yours. Thing is, if you turn up at the cop shop and try to claim a note or coin you lost, you've got to prove it was yours in the first place.
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There is no such offence as 'theft by finding'. I've heard this said before. It is not true.
 
There certainly is such an offence. I knew someone who was prosecuted for it.
 
escargot1 said:
There certainly is such an offence. I knew someone who was prosecuted for it.
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Really? And what happened to them? There may be a case to answer regards someones personable, identifiable property, but - concerning unidentifiable cash? In order for that to work, then the person that lost the money would have to have a record of the banknote numbers. Was he, she, a bank robber?
 
It was a woman. She found money in the street (£80 as I remember, about 20 years ago) and told a neighbour, who threatened to tell the police unless she shared it with him. She refused, so he told the police, and she was arrested/charged/fined.
 
On the deliberately-throwing-money-away theme: a bit of comedy from World War II which has charmed me, since reading about it in memoirs of those times.

Many US troops stationed in Britain in World War II -- they being used to their simple and sensible decimal currency -- found the British money of that period, a sore trial: based on a non-decimal system, and with quite a variety of bizarre coins with strange official, and colloquial, names. For some reason, many of them conceived a particular hatred for the old threepenny bit -- one-quarter of a shilling: they referred to these items as "bastard coins". Tales of Yanks -- far more generously paid than their British counterparts -- receiving their pay packets, opening them and checking the contents, and throwing the "bastard coins" straight down on the ground: lavish and welcome pickings for kids in the vicinity.

I wonder whether the loathing of the threepenny coin perhaps stemmed from the circumstance that -- if I have this rightly -- in the 1940s, two distinct versions of said coin were in circulation at the same time. There were both the old, tiny silver 3d; and the then new, larger twelve-sided cupro-nickel ditto (the kind much more familiar from early years, to my born-just-post-WWII generation). Maybe for these poor chaps, a coin which came in two very different forms was absolutely the last straw as regards "crazy Brit money".
 
I've kept about a dozen thrupenny bits, for some reason I'm quite fond of them.
 
Coal said:
I've kept about a dozen thrupenny bits, for some reason I'm quite fond of them.
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I think they're quite beautiful:
1962threepencebrassrev400.jpg
 
amyasleigh said:
I wonder whether the loathing of the threepenny coin perhaps stemmed from the circumstance that -- if I have this rightly -- in the 1940s, two distinct versions of said coin were in circulation at the same time...
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Until you said that, I wasn't at all sure when the "new" threepenny bit was introduced. I've looked it up, though, and it was 1937 (a handful of Edward VIII versions were test-minted in 1936, so check your drawers, they're worth a lot!), so the twelve-sider would have been in circulation throughout WWII.

What's more, not only were the older silver coins still in circulation at the same time, but they were still minted until the end of the war. It would have been confusing enough for Brits, and so it's perhaps little wonder - assuming it's true, of course - that the US military in the UK would have given up on 3d coins altogether!

I'm wandering off-topic, not for the first time, but the threepenny situation reminds me of my childhood in the early 70s, when shillings, florins and even sixpences were still legal tender, and could be spent as 5p, 10p, or 2 1/2 p.
For the uninitiated, 5p = 12d = 1 shilling = 1 20th of a pound, old or new! Trust that's cleared things up...
 
amyasleigh said:
On the deliberately-throwing-money-away theme: a bit of comedy from World War II which has charmed me, since reading about it in memoirs of those times.

Many US troops stationed in Britain in World War II -- they being used to their simple and sensible decimal currency -- found the British money of that period, a sore trial: based on a non-decimal system, and with quite a variety of bizarre coins with strange official, and colloquial, names. For some reason, many of them conceived a particular hatred for the old threepenny bit -- one-quarter of a shilling: they referred to these items as "bastard coins". Tales of Yanks -- far more generously paid than their British counterparts -- receiving their pay packets, opening them and checking the contents, and throwing the "bastard coins" straight down on the ground: lavish and welcome pickings for kids in the vicinity.

I wonder whether the loathing of the threepenny coin perhaps stemmed from the circumstance that -- if I have this rightly -- in the 1940s, two distinct versions of said coin were in circulation at the same time. There were both the old, tiny silver 3d; and the then new, larger twelve-sided cupro-nickel ditto (the kind much more familiar from early years, to my born-just-post-WWII generation). Maybe for these poor chaps, a coin which came in two very different forms was absolutely the last straw as regards "crazy Brit money".
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Maybe that was partly why we Brits still refer to small change as 'shrapnel' ... as well as kids also collecting actual shrapnel from exploded bomb debris during WWII, they were also picking up Yank discarded coins?.
 
You're possibly over-thinking things there, but then again, you might be on to something. Who knows?
 
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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GNC said:
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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I guess the idea is not to expose a 'Cast Member's' derriere to the Guest Experiencers, or whatever the punters are called in Disney jargon. Not managed a "TA-DA!" yet (good idea) but have a vague memory of doing a 'Hellllo...' (Terry-Thomas style) and Partridgian 'CASHBACK!'. It all passes the time agreeably.
 
Thupennies, and the imminent new paranoid pound (anti-counterfeit shaped) remind me of how coins would look, if the real world was only 8-bit graphics resolution.

They have a flawed beauty...
 
Ermintrude said:
Thupennies, and the imminent new paranoid pound (anti-counterfeit shaped) remind me of how coins would look, if the real world was only 8-bit graphics resolution.

They have a flawed beauty...
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When are they being released to the public?
 
Next year, MMXVII....but, designed four years previous to that date. An oddly-slow release for what is meant to be an urgent fraud prevention measure.

I predict that when the current British round-pound is withdrawn, martial law will be declared. Vans with loudhailers shall cruise the streets, and they'll declare a curfew.

Might be not too different from when I was in London, May 1990, the weekend that the STD phone network code stopped being 01, and became 071/081...it was like a cheap remake of War of the Worlds. People were panicking, buying bread and candles, and eyeing-up the tellies in the display windows up the Edgeware Road....I reckon they were all getting into practice for the Millennium Bug Riots.
 
Ermintrude said:
Next year, MMXVII....but, designed four years previous to that date. An oddly-slow release for what is meant to be an urgent fraud prevention measure.

I predict that when the current British round-pound is withdrawn, martial law will be declared. Vans with loudhailers shall cruise the streets, and they'll declare a curfew.

Might be not too different from when I was in London, May 1990, the weekend that the STD phone network code stopped being 01, and became 071/081...it was like a cheap remake of War of the Worlds. People were panicking, buying bread and candles, and eyeing-up the tellies in the display windows up the Edgeware Road....I reckon they were all getting into practice for the Millennium Bug Riots.
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Every time British currency is withdrawn to make way for its replacement, there's advertising urging people to trade in their old coins/notes for new with a cut off date when old currency will no longer be honoured by retailers and then banks .. I bet there's some mad stories involving 'under the bed' cash hoarders being turned away past the deadline.
 
Swifty said:
Every time British currency is withdrawn to make way for its replacement
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Yes but no. This will be very different....an existential change. I predict a State Funeral. It will only cost a pound...
 
Swifty said:
Every time British currency is withdrawn to make way for its replacement, there's advertising urging people to trade in their old coins/notes for new with a cut off date when old currency will no longer be honoured by retailers and then banks .. I bet there's some mad stories involving 'under the bed' cash hoarders being turned away past the deadline.
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No need to panic, even then, of course - banks (if necessary, the Bank of England, as a last resort!) will still accept out-of-date money. It's not as if the currency itself is changing, after all.

Taking this thread further away from its intended journey, I'm reminded of the scare stories about the Royal Mint that were on TV a month or 2 ago. As you probably mostly know, the Mint produce any number of special coins, above and beyond what we see in our change - £5 and £20 coins, and even a £100 coin quite recently. I myself bought a couple of the recent Winston Churchill £20 coins - made from silver, and available from the Mint at face value.

Anyhow, some customers of the Royal Mint were on Watchdog or some similar programme, moaning that they'd bought some of these commemorative coins as an investment, possibly paying a premium in some cases, but when they'd come to sell them, collectors wouldn't even give them face value. "What a con!" seemed to be the gist of it. Well, my answers to that whinge are several: first, buying anything as an investment is very unpredictable, and hoping to make a profit on a fairly modern coin sounds extremely risky. Second, the Royal Mint will not, in any case, make the claim that all of their coins will rapidly increase in value, so the cries of "con" are invalid. Third, if you really want shot of your unwanted "collectible" coins, then most banks will be only too happy to oblige - at face value, of course. The reason that some collectors will offer less is that they have then got to go to the trouble of going to the bank to do just the same.

For me, I have a few coins which I would deem collectible, but I wouldn't confuse that word with "inflation-busting". Generally, I buy something because I like it, and am happy to pay the price asked, not for profit. Take a look at the Royal Mint's site, and decide whether you really need the latest Beatrix Potter-themed 50p in pure gold for £675, or whether you'd prefer something cheaper:
http://www.royalmint.com/shop/Beatrix_Potter_2016_UK_50p_Gold_Proof_Coin
Me, I'm slightly more tempted by the new £50 coin:
http://www.royalmint.com/shop/Britannia_2015_UK_50_pound_Fine_Silver_Coin

Sorry for letting my musings carry me off topic once again.
 
Peripart said:
Anyhow, some customers of the Royal Mint were on Watchdog or some similar programme, moaning that they'd bought some of these commemorative coins as an investment, possibly paying a premium in some cases, but when they'd come to sell them, collectors wouldn't even give them face value. "What a con!" seemed to be the gist of it. Well, my answers to that whinge are several: first, buying anything as an investment is very unpredictable, and hoping to make a profit on a fairly modern coin sounds extremely risky. Second, the Royal Mint will not, in any case, make the claim that all of their coins will rapidly increase in value, so the cries of "con" are invalid. Third, if you really want shot of your unwanted "collectible" coins, then most banks will be only too happy to oblige - at face value, of course. The reason that some collectors will offer less is that they have then got to go to the trouble of going to the bank to do just the same.
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For the moment, the price of gold and silver is volatile. Recently, the price has been depressed.
That makes it a good time to buy and a bad time to sell.
When the scrap value of silver rises again (as it surely will), that's the time to sell those coins.
I still think they are extremely good value.
 
Andy_X said:
I guess the idea is not to expose a 'Cast Member's' derriere to the Guest Experiencers, or whatever the punters are called in Disney jargon. Not managed a "TA-DA!" yet (good idea) but have a vague memory of doing a 'Hellllo...' (Terry-Thomas style) and Partridgian 'CASHBACK!'. It all passes the time agreeably.
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Off-topic, I know, but I'd just like to say that the absolutely marvellous "Partridgian" will henceforth become my adjective of the year. "Jurassic Park!" :D
 
Novena said:
Off-topic, I know, but I'd just like to say that the absolutely marvellous "Partridgian" will henceforth become my adjective of the year. "
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Me too...everything AP is fantastic, in my opinion. I love that word!

"Lynn, make a note of that: Partridgian....and, we're not talking families here, it's your's truly!"

ps one of my favourite Partridgian quotes is "Flatley my dear I don't Riverdance!"
 
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