Post random interesting trivia

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Our pre-decimal coins (before 1966) are high in silver and worth multiples of their face value. They've been out of circulation for almost 53 years but.

Our very early 50 cent coins were round and worth a few dollars for their silver content. When they switched to a no silver version of the coin they also changed the shape, so those old round 50 cent coins were easy to spot and went out of circulation very quickly as people got them in their change and traded them in to a dealer or stuck them in a drawer.

[Lestat]

Ah, makes sense, I was thinking along the lines of stuff like the buttons, no marking on them, only a fairly good eye for differentiating elements; the buttons needed testing.

Been wondering whether for things like that, if it might not be more profitable to melt them down in HNO3 and sell it as silver nitrate what are the average spot prices for silver per gram these days? because I've seen AgNO3 go for  some pretty reasonable prices, obviously I'd not melt down the antiques, the scrap silver is good to go though, at least as long as I can find it all. And the nitric acid, well all I'd need for that is concentrated sulfuric acid and a nitrate salt add the acid to the with the pressure-equalizing separatory funnel and distill, and I've got about a kilo of sodium nitrate that is just waiting for a use and plenty 98% sulfuric. And I can always use the spare nitric acid. And I'm pretty sure I could find a buyer for any spare strong nitric, plenty of people can't get a hold of HNO3.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Do the coins actually get melted down and turned into silver ingots? Or are they kept as coins for their intrinsic silver value.

I would guess the latter, unless the coins are badly damaged or severely worn. I've got one silver coin from 1910, would be worth $2000+ in uncirculated condition.... but mine is so worn that you can barely even make out the year.

I've probably got a couple of hundred bucks worth of silver coins somewhere. No plans to sell them. I sold off a few old silver coins that were in poor condition when I was a teenager and had no money... kept the ones that were in decent condition.

[Lestat]

Not so much trivia, but my old man hurt himself pretty badly yesterday, helping give someone's car a push start, completely ruptured his achilles tendon, snapped in two. He went to hospital today, after being ordered to by his doctor. Now he'll have to wear a special boot to force the ends of the tendon into alignment so they'll knit together again, and he's on crutches; told he cannot drive although he did today, had to to get to the doctor, giving me a lift on his way so I could collect my scripts due me, but he's been told not to drive it seems, 6-8 weeks in the boot thing.

Limping pretty badly, looks like it hurts like hell, although I doubt he'd admit it. He won't readily take pain meds or antiinflammatories for it either, stubborn cunt like that, basically because  pain is a warning sign he won't dull it.

Which doesn't make sense  when its obvious what not to do when you're stuck in a big bracing boot thing for 6-8 weeks on crutches with a ruptured achilles  tendon. I certainly wouldn't put up with the pain, although I shouldn't take nonsteroidal antiinflammatory meds because of my stomach issues, opioid pain meds are fine, but I can only take NSAIDs topically, which of course  I wouldn't be able to do with my foot in a huge boot-cast given I'd not be able to get to the area to apply a gel.

Still, has to hurt, did offer him something for it, when he was  saying it stopped him sleeping last night , although he was still planning on going fishing in a day or two until told that he couldn't drive. That, he isn't best pleased about. Would still help him out of course, I can pick up something for myself if I were to need to cover a few doses of pain medication to help him sleep at night, but I think he'd have to get pretty desperate before he took anything more than a cup of coffee. Hope he recovers quickly though.

[Yuri Bezmenov]

Did anyone even read my post about maximizing your silver search?

Seriously, take some bucks, go to a different bank chain every week. Hell I figure if I do not claim all the random silver still in circulation, someone else will.

I have a "thing" maturing and it is paying bit by bit over the coming months. This time I have made arrangements for tomorrow morning to pick up one hundred rolls of half dollars to glean for silver.
It does not cost anything, guys. Sure it is heavy as hell to tote, but the bank will take it all back on Monday morning and the only thing you are out is the silver you found and kept.

Of course a trip to the local silver broker makes you money.

I plan to slow smoke a huge ham as well this weekend. I will be busy.

There's even a term for what you're doing, it's called Gresham's Law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law

[DirtDawg]

Downside of the euro. No silver surprises to be found.
Before that, now and then there was a silver surprise. But never in a fl2,50 coin. Those were bigger than the newer fl2,50 coins, so they had all be found already.

Sorry!

I am a bit disappointed with the last of the batch I got as well. Out of the last thirty rolls, six of them were direct from the mint, uncirculated, but there are literally millions of these things minted. No value to me.

I got excited to find that the further down into the stack of rolls I went the older the rolls were. I did find a few more silver pieces, but the last ten (the bank puts them in holders that hold ten rolls) in the stack were all newish and useless.

[DirtDawg]

Do the coins actually get melted down and turned into silver ingots? Or are they kept as coins for their intrinsic silver value.

I would guess the latter, unless the coins are badly damaged or severely worn. I've got one silver coin from 1910, would be worth $2000+ in uncirculated condition.... but mine is so worn that you can barely even make out the year.

I've probably got a couple of hundred bucks worth of silver coins somewhere. No plans to sell them. I sold off a few old silver coins that were in poor condition when I was a teenager and had no money... kept the ones that were in decent condition.

The coins I turn over to a metal broker are destined to be melted and separated into ingots.  If I find anything other than a "Kennedy" I will keep it in another pile. I have not found a "Franklin" in several years and a "Liberty"  is not even in my dreams.
I am looking for the coins very few even remember exist.

[DirtDawg]

Did anyone even read my post about maximizing your silver search?

Seriously, take some bucks, go to a different bank chain every week. Hell I figure if I do not claim all the random silver still in circulation, someone else will.

I have a "thing" maturing and it is paying bit by bit over the coming months. This time I have made arrangements for tomorrow morning to pick up one hundred rolls of half dollars to glean for silver.
It does not cost anything, guys. Sure it is heavy as hell to tote, but the bank will take it all back on Monday morning and the only thing you are out is the silver you found and kept.

Of course a trip to the local silver broker makes you money.

I plan to slow smoke a huge ham as well this weekend. I will be busy.

There's even a term for what you're doing, it's called Gresham's Law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law

Vaguely remember that from high school.
I suppose those like me are a part of the proof of the "law."



Honestly, I see no downside for me.

Before my retirement, I rarely had time to follow this aside as I did so in the eighties. Now that I have more free time and I have taken a raise in fluid funds over working my ass of to get here  (!!!!!!)  I am still finding a bit .  I know the silver is mostly gone, but fuck, every once in a while you get a boost. 
A couple of weeks ago I bought a few fancy cigars at a small tobacconist and I got a 90% silver quarter back in my change.

I recognized it immediately and mentioned it and thanked the owner. I then felt odd, offered it back to him and he did not even understand what I was talking about.
He said, "What's wrong? Is it Canadian? I'm sorry. I'll give you another one."

[Yuri Bezmenov]

Tumbleweeds in the US aren't native to North America, they were accidentally introduced from Russia.

[DirtDawg]

Alaska is not only the most westerly state in the union, but since it sprawls far enough west, it enters the "Eastern Hemisphere" it is also the most easterly of all US states.

:head scratch:

[DirtDawg]

I know I watch too much NatGeo ..

If we were able to remove all the "empty space" from all the atoms that make up all the humans, seven plus billion strong, on the earth, we could fit all that left over mass into a softball. BUT, that softball would weigh around 1,183,000,000,000 pounds.

(stolen arithmetic, I did not even try to estimate how much all the atoms of all the humans on the planet might weigh. I just watched someone else's efforts)

[DirtDawg]

Had to look this one up to get the spelling, but I also got this off of NatGeo episodes. Something called Brain "something."  Obviously watching the show has not helped my brain to function any better than it already does not.


Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia  is the fear of long words.

[DirtDawg]

I have tried several times to pronounce that word, but still a no go.

I might just throw my bullshit flag here.

Why can the name of a fear of long words not be a really short word, just in case?

 

[DirtDawg]

In two weeks I will get another large, life saving check. I intend to go down into Indianapolis (I have called ahead, already) and get two hundred rolls of half dollars this time.

Asking the main branches to open their vaults is my goal.

[Yuri Bezmenov]

I was 1 caller away from winning this morning's trivia question on my local classic rock station.

The question was: When Alan Greenspan was the head of the Federal Reserve, what was the one main economic metric he used to measure the health of the US economy??

The answer is kinda funny, but totally true.