Mermaids & Pirates

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I went to Coney Island on Saturday to the 28th Annual Mermaid Parade and while most of pictures I took are not proper for this venue I did get a neat souvenir.

One group of marchers were dressed as pirates and were throwing out pirate coins. I wanted to get some but there was a little kid next to me running out and grabbing them by the fistful. I manage to get one that got run over by several cars, so it is not uncirculated.

The only difference between each side is one has an added CHINA after the AVAG CO BEPSIG. The picture is some generic roman guy, I assume it may be Neptune. The edge is reeded but I saw a few that were not. As for the AVAG CO BEPSIG it means nothing officially but again I think it is some sort of anagram.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: AVAG CO BEPSIG / Pirate Fake Gold Coin
Year: (No date)
Mintage: Millions upon Millions
Metal: Plastic of some type.
Value: $0.06

I could not find the specific retailer but they seem pretty common.

Do you have an odd coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Year In Review 2009

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Time for the boring end of the year stats.

First for all the coin/currency books that have come out with the new editions this year they are useless as an upgrade. If you don't have any coin/currency books you still may want to get the previous editions to save money.

Now to the coins lets start with a dull bar graph showing the 40 coins/currency I found from 14 different countries.

Check it out Canada once again was the most common world coin I found in my change.
Spain came in number two.
Australia, Bahamas, and Bermuda tied for third place.

Oldest United States Find
1887 Cent

Oldest Foreign Find
1970 Canadian Cent

Most Valuable Find(above face value)
1996 $20 dollar star note in VF about $22.50

Although I found more coins then I ever have all of these coins were of little value. Most were just face value and those above face were just a couple cents above. I wouldn't say it has been disappointing just not spectacular.

At the end I found 65 pieces making it the most since I've started tracking these things. Still a good chunk of that is due to all the U.S. varieties for 2009.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and change for all.

Do you have a coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment

Coinstar FunTime Project

James over at The Copper Counter Blog dared to issue a challenge to build your own mini-Coinstar machine.

Well you don't tell an engineering student to build a model without expecting it to work. My wind turbine from last semester may have been a 1/50th scale but it still produced electricity.

It took my fake non-magnetic Tiny Buffalo but all the other coins were left in the rejection tray.

Update: To add a still of the modified print-out. I had to add a bottom, using Gimp the image manipulation software. I used the cardboard box that my 2009 proof set came in as a backing. Found out that the small tabs were not necessary but larger main tabs worked well. This is due to the thickness of my backing board.

I didn't go step by step with pictures since my camera started acting up but it is pretty straight forward.
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