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

Andy_X said:
Nothing to do with a lack of pride. More a liberating absence of social anxiety, I'd say!
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I was talking about me (for a change) but .. and a phantom penny tosser has been tossing pennies around for ages here ... those coins have bought me at least two cans of beer .. :)
 
Swifty said:
I was talking about me (for a change) but .. and a phantom penny tosser has been tossing pennies around for ages here ... those coins have bought me at least two cans of beer .. :)
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I know!

The best I've done lately is a 20p that was only slightly in a puddle of something (fortunately I had hygenic travel wipes). It's gonna take me a while to buy a can of anything unless I up my game a bit :(
 
At work I often pick up loose change from the floor. The odd note too. I use it to buy my lunch now and then.

Some colleagues have a 'change jar' to keep the shrapnel in, and reckon they collect at least £10 a month!
 
My husband, at work or at home, empty his pockets and leave the loose change on his desk,which is always a bombsite. When he changes jobs, which is about once a decade, he empties his mess and brings back the change. Or when he is tidying the desk in his den. Invariably, not wanting to bother with counting and sorting, he gives his schrapnell to me. I run to the Sainsbury, where there is a machine where you can exchange coins for banknotes for a small fee. I always end up with 30 quids each time!:p
 
Draheste said:
My husband, at work or at home, empty his pockets and leave the loose change on his desk,which is always a bombsite. When he changes jobs, which is about once a decade, he empties his mess and brings back the change. Or when he is tidying the desk in his den. Invariably, not wanting to bother with counting and sorting, he gives his schrapnell to me. I run to the Sainsbury, where there is a machine where you can exchange coins for banknotes for a small fee. I always end up with 30 quids each time!:p
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I often leave doing that for times of unemployment, so my shrapnel bank builds up a bit. On one occasion, I got nearly £100 out of it.
 
I put any £2 coins I get in a jar as emergency stash for when I've forgotten to tap some out. Soon mounts up.
 
I put £2 and 50p pieces into a pottery piggy bank I bought at a folk museum in Denmark. As hunk says it soon mounts up - and I get to use my pig!
 
I saw a really shiny 1p coin on the pavement the other day. You couldn't miss it glittering in the sunlight, so loads of people must have been too proud to snaffle it. I wasn't.
 
graylien said:
I saw a really shiny 1p coin on the pavement the other day. You couldn't miss it glittering in the sunlight, so loads of people must have been too proud to snaffle it. I wasn't.
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If there was a picture of the queen on it, I dropped that one so it's mine! ..
 
Draheste said:
Talking of finding money. I remember once in Gibraltar, I was with my husband and being closer to the ground, I found a 20 euros note. I bought a leather bag with it. Once, at home, at the train station, I found 20pounds note. Naive, I asked around if it was theirs and someone took it. I also find about once a year fivers, just by walking down the road. I have an eagle eye, which is very good for finding books lost in the library where I work.
Once I left my wallet at a paid phone (early 90's, it was) and I was really lucky, as it was picked up by someone honest who took the pain to find inside my home number and rang to my sister. I came back after my sibbling went to pick it up for me. She once find the equivalent of a 50 pounds note in the street and gave a tenner to a homeless person.
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I'm pretty good at scoping out money on the floor, always have been. I found a roll of £160 once, and a couple of steps on, another £20, outside a busy club. Hundreds of people must have walked out and not noticed it, but I swooped on both. Trying to be dead casual as you think "BINGO!" and stoop to pick it up is the hardest part, knowing that if someone spots you, they might make a fuss and claim it. (I'm an honest chap though. Had someone appeared, flustered, searching on the floor for what they'd dropped, I'd have genuinely handed it over.)
I've got the knack of spotting notes folded or scrunched up, I can't explain why. (I had the same knack as a youth, for spotting porno mags in hedges. Something about the colours would draw my eye. Ah, the days before internet porn...)

However, I did have a terrible experience whilst on holiday in France the other week which may well have long-term consequences. I stopped in a lay-by to stretch my legs and spied a folded €50 note, so pounced. It was only as my fingers were closing on it I realised some filthy bastard had used it instead of toilet roll. To add insult to injury, I found it wasn't even a €50 note, it was actually bog-roll, some novelty currency print stuff! Be careful out there folks...
 
Mythopoeika said:
I often leave doing that for times of unemployment, so my shrapnel bank builds up a bit. On one occasion, I got nearly £100 out of it.
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I used to have a large plastic bowl for stray coppers that lived under the kitchen sink (actually two kitchen sinks, having moved house - that's how long I let it fill up). I only got round to doing something about the situation when it became almost too heavy to shift after God knows how many years. Bagged it all up and visited one of those coinstar machines (and was berated for submitting to their usuary - but what could I do? The bank wasn't interested...). I don't remember the exact total, but it was something like £120 once coinstar had taken their pound of flesh.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and recommend it wholeheartedly.
 
Andy_X said:
I used to have a large plastic bowl for stray coppers that lived under the kitchen sink (actually two kitchen sinks, having moved house - that's how long I let it fill up). I only got round to doing something about the situation when it became almost too heavy to shift after God knows how many years. Bagged it all up and visited one of those coinstar machines (and was berated for submitting to their usuary - but what could I do? The bank wasn't interested...). I don't remember the exact total, but it was something like £120 once coinstar had taken their pound of flesh.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and recommend it wholeheartedly.
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A friend of mine who lived in an old cottage had one of those large glass jars (the kind that people grow ferns in) in his bedroom and every night he would empty his change into it until one night he was woken by a loud crash as the weight had built up until it went through the floor.
 
BlackPeter said:
a loud crash as the weight had built up until it went through the floor.
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That reminds me of the record-collector who once wrote to me about the recent work he had done on his home to ensure it was fit for 78s*!

When I started paying for my own insurance, I tended to keep them downstairs, albeit without reinforcing the foundations, as he had! :eek:

So far as I can see, no policy has ever warned me against harbouring 78s or tons of loose change.

*I don't remember people worrying about them in the days they were the only records around. Mind you, they built houses to last then! :p
 
I found a five pound note this morning with no guilt trip attached because I didn't have a clue which door to knock on to ask .. sweet :cool:
 
A neighbour informed me recently that the need to give her pug a morning walk was sweetened by the discovery of a twenty-pound note! She did deserve a bit of luck.

Blown from the hand of a local drug-dealer? I helped soothe her conscience. :)
 
Andy_X said:
I used to have a large plastic bowl for stray coppers that lived under the kitchen sink (actually two kitchen sinks, having moved house - that's how long I let it fill up). I only got round to doing something about the situation when it became almost too heavy to shift after God knows how many years. Bagged it all up and visited one of those coinstar machines (and was berated for submitting to their usuary - but what could I do? The bank wasn't interested...). I don't remember the exact total, but it was something like £120 once coinstar had taken their pound of flesh.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and recommend it wholeheartedly.
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Some banks (NatWest definitely, HSBC I think do have some) have coin paying-in machines in their big town branches. I love tipping a bag of coppers in, and no commission :)
 
Yep, I looked into this but it wasn't an option for me, unfortunately.

I'm sure I read something online about such-and-such bank having now removed their coin machines. At any rate, it seems to me that every normally equipped branch should have one!
 
The coin machines are useful for recovering the vast amount of small change which goes missing. At any time, it seems, a certain proportion (I forget the figure) of small-denomination coinage is 'lost' to circulation. There can actually be a shortage of the stuff, which the machines are good at reversing.

The problem is that people hoard coins and then have difficulty redeeming them for notes. They have to be sorted into denominations for a bank to take them, which puts people off. The machines do everything for them and are fun.
 
escargot1 said:
The problem is that people hoard coins and then have difficulty redeeming them for notes. They have to be sorted into denominations for a bank to take them, which puts people off. The machines do everything for them and are fun.
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The bonus of hoarding them though is that banks give those little plastic bags away for free so when you're ready we can all just sit in our pants (underwear for you Americans) in your living room and sort it all out from there while watching TV or something ..
 
Swifty said:
A shiny 5p coin was rescued from the pavement this morning .. but I won't let it change me ..
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Had an hour at Euston today so I popped over to the Bedlam exhibition at the Wellcome Institute. On way I spotted a 5p coin on the pavement. Thought Hmm, in a rush, I'll have that on way back if it's there! and it was so I did.
 
graylien said:
I found one of the new five pound notes blowing along the pavement on my way to Morrisons this morning. That's the most I've ever found.
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The Mrs says " I'm surprised we don't find more.. the slippery little fuckers" .. the trick to them not 'boinging' out of your pocket is to screw them up first we've decided ...

.. new fivers look cool but they're springy as f**k so be careful people .. I've found a floor bound one already ..
 
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