Nah, those are referred to as "freedom fries" - remember all that nonsense?  Actually the French call them pomme de terre - literally earth apples.

And they are good with mayo, like the Belgians eat them.

One I never bothered to post before, but when you buy it at 60% of melt, you are giving on the lack of an attractive lass all the whiles me thinks:

I'd prefer to have a smaller coin with a lovelier lady on it than that old hag queen thank you.

Yes, he was her personal fitness trainer.  She was a bit "womanly" for awhile, and got lots of flak in press because of it.  So she hired this guy as fitness trainer, she lose this weight and gain a husband.

I have coins of a couple of the Swedish queens, but my favourite is of Kristina - she was one of the most fascinating monarchs of the 17th century in my opinion.  She gave up her throne, inheritance everything to become a nun in a convent in Italy.  And why is still a mystery.

Joel Anderson has tonnes of these coins from barely existent countries.  He has none from my inane little duchy run by some fanatic though.

When I saw them in a darkened reject slot at the Meijers store, I thought oh - five Canadian 10 cent coins, not an unusual find and welcome all the while - especially after another mini-drought of finds.



I swiped them quickly from the reject slot and looked at the edges quickly on the way to the parking lot and pretty much confirmed from the edges that indeed I had five Canadians.

However when I got home and pulled them from my pocket and looked at them, I quickly noticed only four of them were legal immigrants - one of them is a citizen of the USA - a 70 year old citizen in silver!



Inasmuch as my lousy camera(Sony) will permit me to photograph them - it is a 1940-D Merc.  Welcome home intrepid traveler.

The Trail of Tears was exactly why my American ancestors ended up in Texas - having gotten most of the way from where they came - their friend President Sam Houston invited them into the Republic of Texas where they settled in the Red River valley and had a plantation there until the early 20th century.  The next president of Texas, Mirabeau Lamar tried unsuccessfully to send the Americans packing into the then created Indian Territory, but by then bigger issues for Texas were on the horizon, Mexicans invading and then the absorption into the USA.

I search cent boxes(2500 rolled cents each) about once or twice a week on average.  In the past I have been averaging approximately 10 wheats per box, usually 1940’s and 1950’s.  My last three boxes have been somewhat disappointing – the amount of pre-1982 bronze coins seems to be going down to about a quarter of the box and my averages for numbers of wheats have gone down too.  After searching two boxes on Tuesday of this week, I was on the verge of giving up.  I cashed in the zincolns at one of my banks that has a free coin counter and got my cash.  Yesterday I had to go to one of the grocery stores to buy milk, it has one of the in-store banks and on a lark I asked if they had a cent box I could buy.  The teller, who was new apparently and didn’t know me – said no, we don’t have any.  Just then a teller behind her that knows me well, said yes, he can buy one box.  At this point I wondered why I bothered, not having much success with the previous two boxes, but I figured different bank maybe different results.

Well the pre-1982 bronze was consistent with my recent results, rather disappointing.  Wheats were a disappointment too:

1944
1946
1950 – harshly cleaned
1951-D

That was it, four stinkin Lincolns.

San Francisco mints were a bit better than average, considering that I am deep in the Midwest and they are all nearing 40 years old now:

1968
1969 x 3
1970 x 2
1972 x 2
1974

I also had fewer Canadian earlies too 
GVI
1943
QEII YH
1961
1964 x 4

But my best find, the one that made it all worth it was this one, about midway through the box when I let out a scream my kids outside heard and came in wondering what happened…


















My earliest find in a cent box yet… I found a 1909 VDB and a beaten up 1909 back in 2007, my earliest finds so far until yesterday…


I have probably searched 350,000 cents over the past four years – this is the first one of these I have ever gotten:

Yes, 109 years young and Mr. Longacre’s daughter!

First large sized purchase in about 2.5 years for me, had to have because of the lady on the reverse - not the bison on the front.  This note is ex Chet Krause collection.

Bought at nearly $100 under melt - guess nobody likes Ethiopian gold:



Also bought a 1931 Austrian 100 Kronen at about 75 % of spot for the gold in it.  Pays to look at the overlooked coins in online auctions.

The largest banknote that actually did circulate, and one of the oldest available to collectors:



The actual note is about 1/3rd larger than the above image - had to reduce image size so it could be easily loaded.