Can I wear my money?

[Imogene]

the unscrupulous would get a bag of freshly minted gold coins, put them in a bag, and beat the crap out of them

Isn't that called... 'Sweating' the coins?
</learning stuff from Discworld>

[mattm04]

I wouldn't recommend it.

[MannersMakethMan]

That kind of reminds me of that commercial that comes out around tax season with that guy in the bar,wearing his money and people ripping the bills off of him.

There was something similar many years ago on a TV show called Noel's House Party under the section 'Grab a Gran'. They put 3 senior citizens on bungee ropes suspended form the ceiling wearing £1000 in notes. They then bounced up and down whilst the contestant tried to grab a grand from the gran.

[Can I Help Your A$$?]

Yes.

Buy a gold necklace.

[Boggles]

Round these parts, there used to be (in the 1700's) Coiners who would clip or shave the edges of all the gold coins to produce enough gold to make more coins. The scam became so big that they ended up murdered customs men who were investigated them.

It is directly because of them that modern coins are milled or embossed round the edges to stop them being clipped.

[karma_gypsy]

Although I've never heard of a $100 dollar bill being worn as a necklace ... it isn't uncommon to wear coins as pendants. There are Pendant Bezels out there specially made for coins (especially Gold coins) and even Gold Bars (little tiny Gold Bars).



Maybe he was inquiring if the bill could be made into a pendant, like folded up in a certain way and place in a bezel or locket type pendant ... ???

[PepperElf]

Like Hello Kitty neck massagers?

*snicker*

*pulls mind out of the gutter*

... and there are more innocent things out there too. Like cans of hot soup in vending machines
(actually you can get just about anything in vending machines if you go to the right spots... soda, tea, coffee, soup, ipod, shirt, xxx items... tho i i'm not sure if they do the used panties* anymore)


(* link is to snopes article)

[RetailWorkhorse]

On-topic, who in their right mind wears MONEY as a necklace?

The same people who will cut up 100$ bills to lacquer to their nails?




Okay, I was watching Jerry Springer and there was seriously nothing on TV worth watching. I have since bought some video games.

[Chromatix]

Coin-clipping and dilution is an ancient practice, not at all limited to the 1700s. But yes, the milled edges of modern coins (except the copper ones) are a direct defence against clipping. Modern gold bullion coins are protected against sweating by actually being a slight alloy with silver, which makes them much harder. They are 22-karat gold, rather than the completely pure 24-karat grade.

The reasons why gold is used as bullion are twofold: first, it is rare, and only limited amounts of it are mined (with great difficulty) each year, plus it has genuine industrial and cosmetic uses.

Second, it is one of the densest materials on earth, and the only denser materials are even rarer, which means that it is relatively easy to detect an attempted forgery - measure the coin and weigh it, and either one or the other will be wrong on a forgery. Even lead weighs noticeably less than the same volume of gold, though gold-plated lead bars have been used as decoys at various times.

BTW, British policy is that banknotes are still considered redeemable if at least half of it survives. Even if it's cut into several pieces, if you can show that the pieces come from the same note and form more than half of that note (probably including certain specific features), it counts. So while mutilating banknotes is *inadvisable*, I don't think it's actually illegal.