Illegal scamming coin from the 50s...

[digger27]

Illegal scamming coin from the 50's...

The cool find from yesterday....
Back in the 50's when Coke and other soda vending machines were 10 cents for a bottle kids figured out how to scam these machines.
Take a cent, put it under the ball of your shoe and rub it back and forth on a concrete sidewalk.
Then work on grinding down the edges on concrete too.
When you are done you have a coin the size of a dime...but not a dime.
Important when you are a kid in the 50's when pennies really counted and you didn't mind or care that this was illegal.


This thing is way thinner than a dime as you can see in the pic...someone went too far, but the diameter is exactly correct.
I knew what this paper thin coin was all about immediately when I dug it because I had heard about kids doing this from another hunter on YouTube after he found one.
Good thing, I would still be confused about it to this moment if I hadn't.


Another cool coin oddity to add to the collection.

 

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[ctalmadg]

Well, back in the fifties you wouldn't get shot for stealing a coke like today.

 

[trapperart]

Neat

 

[Loco-Digger]

If the vending machine held the bottles horizontal to the ground, all you needed was a bottle opener and a cup.

 

[Crappies-n-Coins]

The cokes I remember from the 50's were a nickle

 

[DeepseekerADS]

The cokes I remember from the 50's were a nickle

Yep! That's a fact

 

[sutphin]

THATS A DANG NEEET COIN .

 

[digger27]

OII

The cokes I remember from the 50's were a nickle

True enough, and there is an interesting history about why the cost of a coke was kept at that nickel price for 70 years.

Why Coke Cost A Nickel For 70 Years : Planet Money : NPR

Near the end of the late 50's things changed and machines came out with the higher price.
Not really possible to fake nickel coins and most if those nickel machines only took a nickel, but to take a cent and change it into a dime sized coin was fairly easy.
All it took was a little time and some effort and the result is exactly what I found so I consider it rare and lucky.

 

[462]

Was creek hunting under a bridge a couple years ago and found a Whole bunch of copper washers and tokens, and some wheat pennies that had been filed down to the size of dimes.

 

[digger27]

There ya go...now you know why they were filed down.
Looks like you found a child's cache.
Those washers might have been used as slugs, also.
Vending machines weren't quite as sophisticated back then as they are today.

 

[kingskid1611]

My dad used to work for coke and when I was a kid he would show me how to put my hand up and release a coke bottle. It was simple and the cokes were always free

 

[UnderMiner]

Long ago I found a bunch of shaved-down foreign coins that an old payphone depot had tossed out - all the coins had been filed down to scam payphones. Irony was although the coins were foreign most were made of silver and thus the scammers were still paying the same amount (in silver anyway) as the phone cost to use.

 

[boogeyman]

If the vending machine held the bottles horizontal to the ground, all you needed was a bottle opener and a cup.

Same with top loaders! Bottle opener & a straw. We got pretty good at it! Slide up on our bikes pop, a couple sips and off to the playground! One of my buddies had guts!!! He'd find a bottle, slurp the soda out of one in the machine half empty then walk into the store fake crying and tell them he got ripped off & there's another one in the machine too! Now days they'd have you on security video and the cops would show up and taze you until you wee'd!

 

[Johncoho]

I have confess. Been there done that, with the bottle opener.

If the vending machine held the bottles horizontal to the ground, all you needed was a bottle opener and a cup.

 

[Nitric]

Cool find and history lessen!

I have to admit as a kid of the late 80's and early 90's, We opened the bottom flap on some machines and reached our arms up inside. Almost getting them stuck in there at times. And could almost empty a machine by pushing around and pushing them out, sometimes you would get one that punctured and end up with pop all over your arm. POP for EVERYONE! I mean.....UHHHH? I saw a friend do it! Ya!

Added...
Was just thinking! The worst one was when we all snuck out at CHURCH CAMP! and I did it to get everyone pop. What a rotten little I was! Well, I guess it was the thought of giving to the thirsty?

 

[Trezurehunter]

My My the things we think of. I just used to go up to a machine with my sledge hammer, crow bar, & sawzall. That took care of business !! ( I liked to get my Coke in bulk !)

 

[Loco-Digger]

My My the things we think of. I just used to go up to a machine with my sledge hammer, crow bar, & sawzall. That took care of business !! ( I liked to get my Coke in bulk !)

I am suprices you didn't strap it to the sissy bar on your stingray and take the whole machine home.

 

[K1DDO1979]

Well, back in the fifties you wouldn't get shot for stealing a coke like today.

 

[treblehunter]

Bunch of cheaters!
ha lol, good thread, nice find.

 

[ivan salis]

ever use a mechanic "claw tool" nut grabber to fish out gold / diamond earrings out of a coin stars dump plate grating holes ? --I used to get the local Winn Dixie manager to "give" me the foreign coins from the coin star machine that stuck to the magnet (lots of Canadain )-- then when I had saved up say 40 bucks or so -- I would mail it to a coin store in Canada that sold us silver coins ..cost me a few bucks ..then once I got back my silver coins --I would then sell one or two coins to regain my "postage cost"--the rest was "free silver" ...