Ouch! Lawnmower Coins!

[Cool Hand Fluke]

Every once in a while you will find one of these cliped silver coins damaged by a lawnmower. That 1879 is a Morgan Silver Dollar! Ouch!

 

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[jdsarasin8194]

OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
POOR SILVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[TORRERO]

How can you be sure that was caused by a lawnmower ?
I have dug coins like this also, but many many more that are bent and twisted
and have a tear in the side of the coin... the bent and twisted ones seem more like
Lawnmower kill...
But I don't know...
Coins are pretty hard.... I'm more of a mind that it would pick them up and bend them
than cut them clean through...

 

[wwace]

It would take one hell of a mower to cut coins like that. The few I have are clad and they are just bent slightly with a little notch maybe. Even the shot silver I have is bent a little with a rough exit side and bullets are a bit faster than a lawnmower blade.

 

[ivan salis]

my eyes -- to see such hooror is like looking at a arc welder without goggles on.

 

[steve from ohio]

Hit a coin on edge with a lawnmower and it will slice right through. Hit it smack on the head or tail and it will bend with a crease in it.

I noticed that when I was cutting the grass recently and a part of a clad quarter flew out of my mower and ended up in my driveway. Made a heck of a noise. I found the other part and it was definitely cut by my mower.

Those spinning blades are pretty good at slicing and dicing coins. A friend found a silver mercury dime cut in half. He searched around and found the other half.....about 25 feet from where he found the first half.

There are plenty of these cut coins being found......the only explanation that makes any sense is the lawnmower scenario. My experience just reinforced my opinion.

OF course maybe someone put those coins in one of these:

 

[ryclo]

Maybe they were cut by some shears because someone didn't have exact change back in the day?

 

[21stTNCav]

I have seen change used for some oddball stuff by a shade tree mechanic who did work in my small hometown in Tennessee. I have see dimes and quarters snipped into to use in small areas between the mount and transmission to take up play, or in one instance to make a better connection for a battery cable. They could have been used in this manner. Personally I think the lawnmower theory is most likely right.

 

[2bits]

I'll go with Slap Chop! Silver is silver...
Doc

 

[TORRERO]

BUT WAIT THERES MORE !!!

What do you all think is the real possibility of these coins getting hit by a Lawnmower
and getting chopped like this, and showing no other signs of BENDING anywhere else
on the coin or coin pieces..
The coins are still just as flat as the were when made....
Don't you think that cutting a coin that fast would cause at least some of the cut part of the
coin to be bent or flexed ??

 

[ryclo]

I would have to see it to believe that a single rotating lawnmower blade could cleanly cut a coin in half! Maybe a reel style mower where you get metal on metal shearing could do it, but not a standard rotating blade! Was this found at a golf course?

 

[ivan salis]

folks --lots of people are killed yearly by sharp metal shards and rocks slung from the blades of lawn mowers -- never stand around a area where mowers are working -- stuff gets flung out at a rapid speed turning into deadly missiles -- you been warned .

 

[greydigger]

I know lawnmowers can throw golf balls a long ways!
Be careful of what you aim at.

 

[bazinga]

I have personally never found a cut silver coin and I have found 500+ silver in the past 5 years. It really seems that most of these 'cut' coins come from out in California. Maybe they used a different kind of mower out west than here in the midwest. But I am like the others, I just don't see a single blade mower cutting a coin cleanly in half. Just the other day I found a large aluminum token that had been hit by a mower. And like others here are claiming, it was bent where the cut was made. And the blade could not make it all the way through a piece of aluminum. So what makes us think that it would do that to a harder metal?

I have found clad coins hit my mowers and the cuts are nowhere near close enough to go all the way through the coin. Plus, the coins are bent where the cut is made.

Of course, I could be way off here, but I'm just going based on my observations.

 

[ivan salis]

a lot depends on the size of the mower's engine ---the speed its blades are running at--and how "sharp" the blades are (freshly sharpened or newer blade--vs dull or older blade) -- i had a chunck of metal pierce a houses aluminum siding as a teen from a riding mower I was driving --if it had been a person it could have killed em .-- dangerous stuff things flying from under the deck of a riding mower

 

[greydigger]

It's fun to park a running lawnmower over a yellowjackets nest.

 

[ivan salis]

ground bees suck

 

[bazinga]

boo bees rock!

 

[TORRERO]

It's fun to park a running lawnmower over a yellowjackets nest.

Been there done that ......
NOT FUN

 

[gleaner1]

My mind is exploding from this thread. I like it. No lawnmowers existed back when barbers were in circulation, at least gas mowers like today. Nowadays, there is a safety standard that has to be met by all mowers sold in the US; it limits the blade speed (rpm's) to a safe level. In other words, the blade "should" not be able to propel rocks or golf balls at a "deadly" speed.
I remember playing baseball one day in a back lot and a neighbor's riding lawnmower (about 50 feet away) struck a small rock propelling it past my head, missed by about 6". This was in the early 70's when the restrictions might not have been in place, I don't know for sure. That rock was whizzing by at deadly speed and I think it would have killed me if it hit my brain box. Nowadays, if you get hit by a rock from a lawnmower, theoretically it wont kill you.

Anyway, no lawnmower ever made could slice through a coin so cleanly. Coins like those shown (I have found one silver quarter and one 1890's Canadian cent cut cleanly) must have been sheared with tin snips or something similar.