Keep the Change Read online

  10. Jon Kamp, “Chicken Owners Scramble When Their Pet Feels Foul: Craze of Raising Birds Grows, but Vets Are Scarcer Than Hen’s Teeth,” Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2013, and Dr. Cheryl Greenacre, interview by author, November 2013.

  11. Website of National Center for Biotechnology Information, W. Rebhandl, A. Milassin, L. Brunner, I. Steffan, T. Benkö, M. Hörmann, J. Burtscher, “In vitro study of ingested coins: leave them or retrieve them?” Abstract. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=zinc+swallowed+coins.

  A HOLE IN YOUR POCKET

  1. Legal Tender, accessed June 22, 2014, http://goldberg.berkeley.edu/art/tender/tender.html.

  2. Dread Scott, artist’s handout for Money to Burn, 2010.

  3. Website of Dread Scott, Money to Burn, 2010, http://www.dreadscott.net/artwork/performance/money-to-burn.

  4. Scott, handout, 2010. On August 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon took the nation off the gold standard, and US currency became fiat (meaning an arbitrary order from an authority, from the Latin for “let it be done”). Mathematical certainty be damned—the value of today’s dollar is established by government decree and confirmed by our faith in Uncle Sam and every other person with whom we do business. Monetary systems are a human invention, an imprecise social science. Ultimately, even with mottoes such as “In God We Trust,” money only works when people trust one another.

  5. Urban legend has it that real money burns bright orange and counterfeit bills burn blue, but the near-constant upgrades in real bills and the great variety of counterfeits make me distrust that blanket belief.

  HONEST WEAR

  1. Website of the United States Secret Service, “Know Your Money,” accessed August 5, 2014, http://www.secretservice.gov/money_technologies.shtml.

  2. For example, “limpness is measured in automated sorting environments using acoustics and ultrasonic reflection,” according to Nabil M. Lawandy and Andrei Y. Smuk, “Supercritical Fluid Cleaning of Banknotes,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research 53 (January 15, 2014): I.

  3. According to the Federal Reserve System, approximately five billion unfit notes per year are destroyed at its East Rutherford Operations Center in New Jersey. In 2013 that amounted to $42 billion (statistics from the Museum of American Finance’s 2013–14 exhibition The Fed at 100).

  4. The international anticounterfeiting expert Yoshihide Matsumura of Matsumura Technology Co., Ltd., in Tokyo, Japan, is nicknamed “Golden Fingers” because he can, while blindfolded, distinguish authentic currency from counterfeits. Matsumura has exposed counterfeiting operations that make US one-hundred-dollar banknotes with engraving that is, tellingly, sharper than that of authentic bills.

  HAMILTON, FRANKLIN, JUROR, AND GOLDEN

  1. J. H. Griffith, Money As It Was and Is (New York: Eagle Job and Book Printing Department, 1877), 18.

  2. US banknotes also feature tiny, evenly dispersed red and blue fibers and have included red, blue, and gold seals from time to time.

  3. Bankrate, Jay MacDonald, “A rainbow of US money to appear in 2003,” June 20, 2002, http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/sav/20020420a.asp.

  4. Federal Register, https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/05/29/2014-12435/exchange-of-mutilated-paper-currency, accessed August 21, 2014.

  5. Website of Golden Artist Colors, “A History of GOLDEN Artist Colors, Inc.,” accessed June 23, 2014, http://www.goldenpaints.com/company/history.php.

  6. Website of Golden Artist Colors, Just Paint, October 2001, accessed July 1, 2014, http://www.goldenpaints.com/justpaint/jp7article4.php.

  ILLUSTRATED TAXONOMY

  1. The only difference is that while the US Mint produces more dimes than quarters, I have more mutilated quarters than dimes.

  2. Leon Worden, “The Denver Mint Today,” COINage 42, no. 2 (February 2006): 74.

  3. 18 USC §475 (2006). Also see Gregory G. Brunk, Merchant and Privately Countermarked Coins: Advertising on the World’s Smallest Billboards, 2nd ed. (Rockford, IL: World Exonumia Press, 2003).

  4. Chop marks are discussed in “Star Stamps on Paper Money,” The E-Sylum 11, no. 36 (September 7, 2008), accessed July 15, 2014, http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v11n36a10.html. See also Adamandia Kapsalis’s collection of photographs of chop marks, accessed July 3, 2014, https://www.facebook.com/adamandia.kapsalis/media_set?set=a.1382079108540.2047440.1128831708&type=3.

  5. Nabil M. Lawandy and Andrei Y. Smuk, “Supercritical Fluid Cleaning of Banknotes,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research 53 (January 15, 2014).

  6. See John Deyell’s excellent analysis of these countermarks, “Shroff Maarks on Bengal Sultans Tankas,” February 2002, at Scott Semans World Coins, accessed July 15, 2014, http://coincoin.com/I068.htm.

  7. Federal Register, https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/05/29/2014-12435/exchange-of-mutilated-paper-currency, accessed August 21, 2014.

  8. Delma K. Romines, Hobo Nickels: An Extensive Study of Hobo Nickels (Newbury Park, CA: Lonesome John Publishing Co., 1982).

  9. Damaged money can be very fragile. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing suggests these steps for redeeming flood- and fire-damaged money:

  (a) Regardless of the condition of the currency, do not disturb the fragments any more than is absolutely necessary.

  (b) If the currency is brittle or inclined to fall apart, pack it carefully in plastic and cotton without disturbing the fragments and place the package in a secure container.

  (c) If the currency was mutilated in a purse, box, or other container, it should be left in the container to protect the fragments from further damage.

  (d) If it is absolutely necessary to remove the fragments from the container, send the container along with the currency and any other contents that may have currency fragments attached.

  (e) If the currency was flat when mutilated, do not roll or fold the notes.

  (f) If the currency was in a roll when mutilated, do not attempt to unroll or straighten it out.”

  10. Edward Haller, “The Nature of Encrustation on Coins from the Wreck of the Republic (1865),” Odyssey Marine Exploration, 2013, accessed July 15, 2014, http://shipwreck.net/pdf/OMEPaper31-2013.pdf.

  Further Reading

  Ackroyd, Peter. Newton. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2008 ebook.

  Anthon, Charles E. American Journal of Numismatics and Bulletin of the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society II (June 1867).

  Bart, Frederick J. United States Paper Money Errors: A Comprehensive Catalog and Price Guide. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2008.

  Brunk, Gregory G. Merchant and Privately Countermarked Coins: Advertising on the World’s Smallest Billboards. 2nd ed. Rockford, IL: World Exonumia Press, 2003.

  Chambers, Bruce W. Old Money: American Trompe l’Oeil Images of Currency. New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 1988.

  Colo, Papo, and Jeanette Ingberman. Illegal America. New York: Exit Art, 1982. (To open a new copy of this exhibition catalog, one has to tear an actual US dollar bill.)

  Craig, Sir John. Newton at the Mint. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1946.

  Frankenstein, Alfred. After the Hunt: William Harnett and Other American Still Life Painters, 1870–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.

  Goodwin, Jason. Greenback: The Almighty Dollar and the Invention of America. New York, Macmillan, 2003.

  Griffith, J. H. Money As It Was and Is. New York: Eagle Job and Book Printing Department, 1877.

  Gross, Gay Merrill. Money-Gami. New York: Parragon Books, 2014.

  Herbert, Alan. Official Price Guide to Mint Errors. 6th ed. New York: Random House, 2002.

  Margolis, Arnold. The Error Coin Encyclopedia. New York: published by author, 1991.

  Prown, Jules David. “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method.” Winterthur Portfolio 17, no. 1 (Spring 1982): 1–19.

  Romines, Delma K., Hobo Nickels: An Extensive Study of Hobo Nickels. Newbury Park, CA: Lonesome John Publishing, 1982.

 
; Rosato, Angelo A. Encyclopedia of the Modern Elongated. New Milford, CT: Angros Publishers, 1990.

  Sheldon, William H., MD, Dorothy I. Pascal, and Walter Breen. Penny Whimsy: A Revision of Early American Cents, 1793–1814: An Exercise in Descriptive Classification with Tables of Rarity and Value. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958.

  Shutty, Michael S., Jr. One Coin Is Never Enough: Why and How We Collect. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2011.

  Spagnuolo, Peter. Notes in Passing. New York: Pavel Zoubok Gallery, 2008.

  Vanselow, Clarence H., and Sherri R. Forrester, “Shell Thickness of the Copper-Clad Cent,” Journal of Chemical Education 70 (1993).

  Internet Sources

  Americans for Common Cents: http://www.pennies.org

  American Numismatic Association: http://www.money.org

  American Numismatic Society: http://www.numismatics.org

  The Combined Organizations of Numismatic Error Collectors of America: http://hermes.csd.net/~coneca/

  Inspector Collector, author’s website: http://www.inspectorcollector.com

  Museum of American Finance, public programs presented by the author: http://www.moaf.org/education/classes/index

  US government agencies

  http://www.federalreserve.gov

  http://www.moneyfactory.gov

  http://www.secretservice.gov

  http://www.treasury.gov

  http://www.usmint.gov

  Credits

  Photographs on pages 1, 10, 12, 18, 21, 24, 25, 36, 43 top, 81, 88, 90 left, 94 top, 95, 96, 98, and 100: Marty Heitner

  Photographs on pages 14, 60, and 78 and scans on pages 2, 17, 29, 30, 32, 39, 43 bottom, 44 top and bottom, 46, 48, 52, 66, 73, 75, 90 right, 91, 92, 93, 94 bottom, 97, and 111: Micki Watanabe Spiller

  All images depict artifacts from the author’s collection except page 47, which is in the artist Gülşen Çalik’s collection and was photographed by Salim Westvind.

  2: Courtesy of Mark Wagner

  17: Courtesy of John Beifuss

  25: Courtesy of Norm Magnusson

  43 top: Courtesy of Beriah Wall

  43 bottom: Courtesy of Nicolás Dumit Estévez

  44 top: Courtesy of David Greg Harth

  44 bottom: Courtesy of Peggy Diggs

  46: Courtesy of Jim Costanzo

  48: Courtesy of Iris Rose

  60: Courtesy of Gay Merrill Gross

  75 column 2, row 4: Courtesy of Paul McMahon

  90 right: Courtesy NBCUniversal Media, LLC

  96 center: Courtesy of Rumiko Tsuda

  98 top: © Merrickmint.com

  Grateful acknowledgment of the following for permission to reproduce excerpts from these works:

  Epigraph, page 11: Reprinted with the permission of Scribner Publishing Group, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume I: The Poems, Revised by W. B. Yeats, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright © 1940 by Georgie Yeats, renewed 1968 by Bertha Georgie Yeats, Michael Butler Yeats, and Anne Yeats. All rights reserved.

  Epigraph, page 69: Wrinkled Crinkled Wadded Dollar Bill

  Words and Music by Vince Matthews

  Copyright ©1968 UNIVERSAL—SONGS OF POLYGRAM INTERNATIONAL, INC. Copyright Renewed

  All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

  Acknowledgments

  E pluribus diversitas

  (Out of many, diversity)

  Writing this book has helped me cultivate rarity in coins, banknotes, and friends of a feather. I hope you, dear reader, have savored the preceding words and numbers that the following people have generously helped me round up.

  Alex Kalman, diviner of the human footprint, IOU for being the first to suggest a book about mutilated money. I am also indebted to Princeton Architectural Press’s acquisitions editor Sara Bader for her faith in this, my first book, and for her extraordinarily precise, wise, careful, and cordial editing, and that of her fellow editors Sara Stemen and Erica Olsen. Thanks also to Paul Wagner, Jan Haux, Mia Johnson, Janet Behning, and Andrea Chlad of Princeton Architectural Press. Thanks to Marty Heitner for his friendship and photography supreme, and to numismatist Michael Pfefferkorn for his deep knowledge, careful suggestions, and great kindness to a perfect stranger. Great gratitude is also due to Micki Watanabe Spiller, my better two-thirds, for providing backbone, technical ken, and artistic wizardry, and to our son Hiro, who also stooped to the occasion countless times, finding more “messed-up money” than anyone except his Grampa Mort and Aunt Lora.

  Other contributors of mangled money over the years include John Beifuss, Adam Cooperman, Marc Labelle, Fred Senters, Dawn Sweetman, and Aaron Underwood. Artists who contributed mutilated money, creative money works, and concepts include: Martine Aballéa, J. S. G. Boggs, Gülşen Çalik, Jim Costanzo, Peggy Diggs, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, George Ferrandi, Dustin Grella, Gay Merrill Gross, David Greg Harth, Marko Burić Hindkjaer, David F. Jelinek, Adamandia Kapsalis, Lady Pink, Annie Lanzillotto, Hanne Lauridsen, Norm Magnusson, Jeff McMahon, Paul McMahon, Richard Minsky, Cyrilla Mozenter, Por El Ojo (Julia Balmaceda, Federico Gonzalez, Daniel Sanjurjo, Ignacio Sourrouille), Dread Scott, Susan Share, Karen Shaw, Robbin Ami Silverberg, Roger Smith, Jonathan Stangroom, Rumiko Tsuda, Mark Wagner, Beriah Wall, and Dolores Zorreguieta.

  Thanks also to Khi Armand, Aaron Beebe, Kenneth H. Blumberg, David Brody, Patrick Burns, Dusan Canovic, Gaetano Carboni, Jonathan R. Cohen, David J. Cowen, Jeanne Driscoll, Jay Edlin, Douglas P. Evans, Jim Bob Evans, Michael Garofalo, Paul Glastris, Stephen Gould, Cheryl Greenacre, Joseph E. Kulba, Nabil M. Lawandy, Rosemary Lazenby, Dana “there is nothing wrong with your cite, but…” Louttit, Alec Mahrer, Sid Mandelbaum, Chris Meyers, Melissa M. Monroe, Kukiko Nobori, Henry Petroski, Peter Prescott, Sidney Rocke, Josh Safdie, Jill J. Underwood, Rob Van Erve, Steven V. Vella, Jonathan J. Ward, and Tsugie Watanabe.

  About the Author

  Harley J. Spiller is a museum professional who has written for Columbia University Press, Oxford University Press, Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, and the New York Times. Spiller was named one of the nation’s “Top 100 Collectors” by Art & Antiques magazine.