Dang that’s a lot of pennies!

Since they can do a better job of describing their site than I can, I’ll quote them to provide a description of the site.

Visualizing huge numbers can be very difficult. People regularly talk about millions of miles, billions of bytes, or trillions of dollars, yet it’s still hard to grasp just how much a “billion” really is. The MegaPenny Project aims to help by taking one small everyday item, the U.S. penny, and building on that to answer the question: “What would a billion (or a trillion) pennies look like?”

The MegaPenny Project

1. Is the image on a coinage hub mostly raised or incused? Answer Raised

2. Who is Dr. J. De Jong? Answer Master of the Dutch Mint

3. What was Hell Money? Answer Notes used in Chinese funeral rites

4. In what year were the first US gold certificates issued? Answer 1873

5. Who appeared on the 1983 1-ounce American Arts Gold Medallion? Answer Robert Frost

Apparently a digging crew was working and just happened upon a whole bucket of coins. They didn’t strike it rich though. All of the coins will be cleaned and go to the local museum for display.

Here’s one article about the find, and here’s another saying the find is worth over £10,000.

Here’s a press release I just received from The Professional Numismatists Guild. The full title was Collector Advisory: Beware Bogus Bargains Online In Rare Coin Bull Market, but that was a bit too long for my tastes.

(Fallbrook, California) – The multi-billion dollar rare coin market continues to climb with record prices reported virtually every month; however experts caution that prudent buyers should be careful about inaccurate descriptions that could drastically affect the market value of their purchases. Many rare coins are listed in online auctions as “certified,” but not all authentication services use the same criteria for determining the grades (condition) of coins.

In some cases, the “certified” coins actually may be counterfeits.

“The value of a rare coin is highly dependent on its specific grade – its state of preservation. Often, very small differences in quality translate to very large differences in value,” advises Jeff Garrett of Lexington, Kentucky, President of the Professional Numismatists Guild, a nonprofit organization founded in 1955 and composed of many of the country’s top rare coin dealers.

“In looking at online coin auctions, we’ve recently counted references to nearly two dozen different numismatic certification companies. Many collectors and investors are under the potentially-costly false assumption that all of these certification services abide by similar criteria for judging the authenticity and grade of United States coins. Not all grading services make the grade. That results in bogus bargains: coins that are over-graded and over-priced, or not even genuine,” warns Garrett.

“Even though there are nearly two dozen companies issuing opinions about the authenticity and grade of U.S. coins, the major numismatic publications usually only track the values of coins graded by three or four of those companies. That should be a strong caution signal to buyers about how the marketplace values the opinions of some authentication and grading services more than others,” says Garrett.

PNG Executive Director Robert Brueggeman emphasizes there is no substitute for knowledge: “If you don’t know rare coins, then you’d better know your coin dealer.”

All PNG members must adhere to a strict code of ethics in the buying and selling of numismatic merchandise, and demonstrate knowledge, responsibility and integrity in their business dealings. PNG members must agree to binding arbitration to settle any unresolved disagreements over numismatic property. An online directory of PNG members is available at www.PNGdealers.com.

For a copy of the informative guides, “What You Should Know Before You Buy Rare Coins For Investment” and “The Pleasure of Coin Collecting,” send $1 to cover postage costs to: Robert Brueggeman, PNG Executive Director, 3950 Concordia Lane, Fallbrook, California 92028. Phone: (760) 728-1300. Fax: (760) 728-8507. E-mail: [email protected].

Gary found Petromyzon’s flickr account which is stocked with over 500 photos of arcade tokens.

Impressive. It reminds me of when I used to deliver newspapers to a bowling alley that had a video arcade. They always paid me in quarters.

The customers who came after the bowling alley got their newspaper much later than the customers who came before the bowling alley.