Coin Collecting

(from 2012)

This post is actually nothing to do with the science of numismatics – but is all about the travails of unloading heavy items from pockets and saving quietly on the sly. And how a casual habit CAN BECOME AN OBSESSION!

Prior to decimalization in 1971, the UK used to have what was called a threepenny bit – a strange twelve-sided coin that probably made sense at the time, but seems weird today. In those pre-decimal days, there were eighty of them to a GBP. Nonetheless, in another life I had a special jar to collect them, and though life was poverty row at the time, two LP records came out of it – Buddy Holly and Bob Dylan if I remember rightly.

Wind the clock forward several decades. When Mrs Occasional took early retirement from teaching, we had an arrangement where, since all my payments came in cash, every time a modern 2 GBP coin turned up she could have it. She did very well out of that – once we struck that deal, it seemed that everybody was paying me in an abundance of 2 GBP coins.

When she reached a magic age and got a pension, then I became mean and kept the 2 GBP coins for myself – along with all the other coins that people kept pushing my way. And so the special jar syndrome came back into being.

Actually, the modern version is a special tub with a slot that registers on top exactly how much it contains. Somehow the mechanism can distinguish between the eight different shapes of coin in regular use, which weigh Brits down and make holes in their pockets.

So, I filled the jar. The way I am paid it didn’t take long. Well, that looked good, so having a large spare empty coffee jar to hand I transferred the coins to it – and started again. When I reached a certain figure, I thought that I had never done this before, so perhaps just another arbitrary total ahead and then I had better bank it. But somehow it got out of hand, and the back of my wardrobe became increasing laden as coffee jars filled with legal tender went forth and multiplied.

I finally decided on a figure, and then another figure, and from here and there the coins came, until I reached the grand total of two thousand GBP. I know... I know... I could have banked it and earned interest, but have you seen the interest rates in the UK recently? Recession and all that?

So now was the time to break the news to Mrs Occasional. She knew I put coins away; she regularly unloaded the little nuisances on me, knowing I would do ‘something’ with them. But when I told her I had done ‘something’ – I had actually salted away two thousand GBP in the bottom of the wardrobe, causing the floor to sag below – well, there were two not unexpected reactions.

The first was surprise and delight. Ooh - what could we spend some of this money on?

But the other was horror!

HOW MUCH...?

IN THE HOUSE...?

FOR HOW LONG...?

What if someone broke into the house and stole it all? I patiently explained that any robber would give themselves a hernia trying to shift it, but strangely this did nothing to console her.

But yes even I, in sane moments, have to admit – it had got a bit out of hand.

So we recently had an interesting time with a table full of large jars of small coins, along with a huge pile of money bags. Add to the mix a rapidly diminishing bottle of wine and we were suitably distracted while counting.

Having finally bagged it, the next step was to bank it. My local post office doubles as a bank since all the actual banks have closed down in the interests of ‘efficiency’ and has taken bagged coins before. But even they nearly fell off their perch at the volume of bagged small coin that was wheel-barrowed up to the counter.

I suspect I will not be doing it again. In fact, I HAVE BEEN TOLD I WILL NOT BE DOING IT AGAIN. But – perhaps just...just the first hundred next time...  Shh – please, you won’t tell...

But hey – it did come as a bonus.

When this was first posted in 2012 a correspondent named TallMidget made this comment:

Disappointed! Thought your punch line was going to be your being attacked by a guy with a whip when you emptied your coins into the church offertory - and escaping in a cloud of pigeons.