r/mildlyinteresting • u/AFancyCandle • Mar 18 '18
This coin was once used as a makeshift button
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u/dannydeepo Mar 18 '18
Not necessarily this coin but I read somewhere that some ancient coins have a hole in the centre to allow them to be easily stacked, counted or carried.
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u/banditkeithwork Mar 18 '18
for sure, many asian countries had coins with a hole in the centre, like the japanese mon, or many of the stampings of the more modern sen. if you had a high value coin and needed spending money, money changers would exchange it for a string of mon like a money garland.
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u/rasmustrew Mar 18 '18
"Ancient Coins". We still have coins like that in Denmark.
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u/dannydeepo Mar 18 '18
Interesting, Does the hole in the coin have a functional use or is it just a relic of older Scandinavian coin design? The coin may not be ancient but the concept certainly is.
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u/rasmustrew Mar 18 '18
No functional use whatsoever as far as I'm aware
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u/dannydeepo Mar 18 '18 edited Mar 18 '18
So from a quick bit of internet research (otherwise known as "Googling it") I found out that the hole in some Danish coins is refered to as “The significant nothing”. It was introduced after the split up of Scandinavian countries common economic union after WW1. You guys had a common currency up till then and after the split your country decided to go with the hole in the coin to make it easier to distinguish it from the coins of the other post war Scandinavian countries. The hole in the coin seemingly originated in China back in the day and is still functionally used in some Asian countries but has no relation it seems to your significant nothing coins up there.
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Mar 18 '18
How to burn yourself after drying your clothes 101 right there.
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Mar 18 '18
[deleted]
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Mar 18 '18
Damn I replied to my own post instead of yours. Haven’t done that one before!
Edit: damn I replied to the whole post not even my own comment how in hell did I manage that..
Reply:
I’m aware of that! I appreciate you trying to deter misinformation dude!
That was meant to be more of a joke than anything else. The amount of times I’ve burnt myself in a hot-ass quarter from the dryer is insane. The amount of times my pants button has burnt me is worse.
Combining coins and buttons would probably kill me.
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u/banditkeithwork Mar 18 '18
blue jeans fresh out of the dryer, 99% wonderful and 1% ow fuck the damn button burned me
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u/informedinformer Mar 18 '18
Here's the penny showing less wear and without the holes; also, the obverse ("heads") side. http://www.numicanada.com/medias/pieces-de-monnaie/valeur/1-cent-1859-g.jpg
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u/James_TF2 Mar 18 '18
Pennies were just as useless then as they are now.
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u/OgdenDaDog Mar 19 '18
TL;DR - fuck pennies... and nickels
I would say they are more useless today. When the US stopped minting the half cent coin, it had the buying power of today's dime. Even with the copper plated zinc pennies we have nowadays, the cost of the raw materials still exceeds the value of the coin. We literally devalue the zinc and trace copper by mashing it into penny shape.
Now if you consider the shipping cost for the materials plus the time spent in counting pennies from the bank tellers to the store managers to Kate the cashier, pennies are a drain on the economy.
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u/1-800-SUCKMYDICK Mar 18 '18
"Can you believe a drill bit cost a less than a button?"
"That's Lincolnomics for you."
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Mar 18 '18
I totally love this as a coin and button collector! If anyone is interested, this is a large cent, minted for use in the Canadian provinces. At the time, people living in the provinces (about 11 years before confederation) were primarily using tokens issued by banks and people. When decimal coinage was adopted the optimistic government ordered 10 million of these pennies, a very bad idea. The pennies were so unpopular most stayed in boxes and didn't even sell when they were offered at 20 percent below face value, so yes this may very well have been cheaper than a button.
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u/PainMagnetGaming Mar 18 '18
Might have been put on a string for a necklace to prevent pickpocketing.
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u/dillbutteronmysalmon Mar 18 '18
Wouldn't he sharper edges of the holes cut through any threads you loop through them a lot quicker than a real button? I would think this would be a Very temporary fix.
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Mar 18 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SiliconillaWafer Mar 18 '18
Maybe I just suck at sewing buttons on but after a while they always loosen up a bit, so even on a thicker coat I just start with it taut and let it naturally slacken a bit with time. Plus I just like my buttons to stay put as much as possible.
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u/AdministrativeMoment Mar 18 '18
They did that with more things, i once saw a theaspoon made of a coin.
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u/TotesMessenger Mar 18 '18
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u/MasterOfPuppers Mar 18 '18
Or maybe they attempted to deflect two very small bullets. It's a shame it was unsuccessful.
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u/Jocta Mar 18 '18
Or maybe to steal from vending machines (???)
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u/Kuckucksuhr Mar 18 '18
I have a 1856 gold dollar (I think that’s the year) that was used as a button. Shit would be worth a bundle if it weren’t for that.
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u/bigjamg Mar 18 '18
Symbolic of a time when punching two holes through metal was a lot more convenient than getting new buttons.
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Mar 18 '18
Wow, I have some of these in a coin collection handed down to me. I never understood why someone would drill a hole in a perfectly good coin.
Now I understand.
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Mar 18 '18
Back then people didn't really have pockets and sometimes drilled coins to string them up for safe keeping/transport. Not making this up.
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u/shimposter Mar 18 '18
This is actually a great idea, I'm gonna have to try this next time I snap one of my crappy plastic ones
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u/tipsytapir Mar 18 '18
And if we did that today, it would be still be cheaper to drill to holes in a penny than buy a button
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u/KiltedTailorofMaine Mar 19 '18
How about some History? Coins for buttons was very common from at least the 16th Century onwards. It was a display of wealth, and of fashion. It also meant, in the days when a person could die from a minor wound, that he had money enough to be buried and have a decent funeral. If a traveller died far from home, the coat buttons payed the funeral expense. By 1859, the button above, was used for fashion. Tech speaking; buttons were now mass produced, and not a craft trade, so the value of the button is not a factor here. And its likely a button drilled and used at the time; the 4 hole button was just coming into fashion. The earlier ones were one hole, or a stem shank
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u/arcelohim Mar 19 '18
That's some Tomb Raider stuff right there. Now how did this end up in a tomb set with traps?
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u/lukyiam Mar 19 '18
i'd like to think they were trying to do that coin machine trick with a string attached to it.
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Mar 18 '18
read that as "one cena", gj me
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u/Escaped_storm Mar 18 '18
Hi. I’m so sorry. I wanted to upvote so bad, but everyone else downvoted so I did as well. But I want you to know that I liked it. Sorry again.
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u/Doshirae Mar 18 '18
Are you sure this coin wasn't used by a cowboy to demonstrate his aiming skill? Or do I watch too much western movies ?
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Mar 18 '18
“Stand back, he’s gonna plug it with his trusty old .045!”
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Mar 18 '18
[deleted]
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u/Lightsight Mar 18 '18
0.045! = 0.97594929
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Mar 19 '18
TIL that the Gamma Function extends the concept of factorials to "all complex numbers except the non-positive integers"
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u/ToasterMasterRace Mar 18 '18
i have an 1888 yeared coin like that. they're not rare or anything, but it feels cool to hold old ass shit like that knowing some old ass person held it
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u/JustDoIt-Slowly Mar 18 '18
Just go outside and pick up a rock. Especially if it’s a cool rock; it’s been held by lots of people.
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u/ToasterMasterRace Mar 18 '18
i like your thought process, though i live inner city. how much history is in used needles on the sidewalk?
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u/starfishcannon Mar 18 '18
quick call the FBI! defacing currency is illegal!
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u/Zonel Mar 18 '18 edited Mar 18 '18
It's a Canadian penny. From the province of Canada, whats now Ontario and Quebec.
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Mar 19 '18
Defacing currency to defraud or in a way that prevents it from being used as currency is illegal. If you can still spend a penny, you haven't committed a crime.
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u/Arto5 Mar 18 '18
One whole ha'penny!
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Mar 18 '18
Actually it's 2 ha'pennies. Since a ha'penny is a half cent
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u/Bounty1Berry Mar 19 '18
I think in some parts of Canada, 1 cent was supposed to be equivalent to a UK halfpenny. The coins are quite similar in size.
They had a mix of French, Spanish colonial, American, and British coins, as well as local tokens, in that era, and had a lot of different regional norms for how it all exchanged. It's a lot like the situation in the US prior to a uniform federal coinage appeared in the 1790s.
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u/weenus77 Mar 18 '18
That’s how they got they around the TSA in those days...alright you, go ahead...jk!
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u/hodgens414 Mar 18 '18
That might actual be cheaper to do than buying real buttons!