*OT* Just like Vega$

[oz_il]

Helped someone put a top on for a new pool table. Guy happens to have a nickel slot machine that was built in 1909! He gave me a chance to win some $ by handing me a tray full of buff nickels

Man, it was sweet seeing all those coins. I only tried one pull and nothing of course(1 plum, 2 lemons). Then again he may have emptied the machine so if I hit the jackpot I may have just won the nickel I put in :P

He had just buff's though, no V nickels.

Now, off to tackle the snow on top of the ice.

[twistidd]

Cool!

That reminds me of one of the many times I'd go "exploring" at my grampa's house when I was a kid. He had jars of coins stashed away in all kinds of nooks and crannies and had been storing them for years. I'd look through them all and find the old ones. One time I was going through a box of stuff my uncles had owned when they were kids and still lived there. In the box was a little bank. You'd put a coin in the coin slot, pull the handle, and the coin would drop down into the bank. In order to access your coins, you had to open the bank with a key. Unfortunately, the key was long gone. It was most unfortunate because when the bank was shook, it was clear that there were coins inside! They had to have been old.

Eventually, I managed to pick the lock with the aid of a safety pin and found that inside the bank were a variety of late fifties/early sixties coins, including a silver Rosey or two and a few wheats/early memorials. There was also a buffalo. It was a lot of fun, for sure.

Joe

[Lowbatts]

That's cool Joe, found a couple of the old cast iron piggy banks like that in the river, empty and mostly rotted.

Was at an old community dump one time and me and a buddy found several commercial washing machines and a couple vending machines. We tore them apart and found one of the washers had five or six bucks in silver quarters and dimes and got some smaller qty loose change from nooks and crannies in the vending machines! Wonder how many abandoned coin-op caches are out three waiting to be liberated?

[dirtyJohn]

That's a good story. I had something similar happen to me years ago. I worked at a restaurant/bar/liquor store in town that opened in the 40's. The owner's father (original owner) used to hand out promotion keychains that had two nickels in them (to make a phone call or pay toll, who knows). He had a whole box of them in the basement that have been sitting for 50 years and everyone of them had boffalos in them. He let me keep a bunch of them. HH