I cant find any information about this topic on the web; but I would like to know more about how banks and even the mints handled coins in the old day so that I could have a better understanding of what Old Coins should look like and how friction areas should look. Did banks spend the time to roll coins? or did they just throw them in the iconic $bags we see in movies and cartoons today? Also where did they store them? Anyone know any history on this particular subject?
I have not seen one but I have heard that back in the day banks used a roll that contained a metal spring to hold the coins tight, this spring sometimes marked coins with a spot where the spring, ( a spring is a hard metal) contacted the coin.
From everything I've ever been able to find out paper coin rolls were invented sometime in the late 1800's, never could find an exact date. But they never really saw much use until around the 1930's. Before that, and even after that, coins were mostly kept in canvas bags. Once a bag was opened by the bank the coins were kept either loose or in wood trays much like the ones you see today. As for the mint, all coins were distributed in canvas bags.
they had a rough life. I have seen pictures where they actually used silver shovels (to cut down on damage!) to scoop then up for counting into canvas bags. then they got placed/tosssed into a wagon pulled by horses to a railroad for shipment to wherever. it amazes me that there are any high grade old coins. some collectors went right to the mint to pick up bags or rolls but that didn't happen much.
Coins in my childhood had a tough life. Ive seen my dad put them into his pocket along with a pocket knife and a lighter he used for other things but sometimes to start a fire in a wood stove. In high school we used coins from our money to buy lunch for a game called throwing to the line. Most of the time that line was a brick wall where the coin that got closer to it won the others. Often the coins hit the wall more than they missed it. Other games were when you fliped a coin into the air letting it fall on an old plank or tiled floor to see who called the way it landed. Back then it was called heads or tails. The one that called it right won. Ive often wondered where the coins from older years that are posted here come from as most i saw in my childhood were damaged badly and most did not have a date that was readable. If you could read a date or the word liberty then you had a coin most of us would would want to win if the guy haveing it would chance loseing it in a game of match.
These games remind me of what we used to call "bloody knuckles." One person would get a quarter or half dollar spinning. The other person had to give that spinning quarter or half a flick to keep it spinning. If the flick was wrong the coin would fly off the table or topple. If this happened, you placed both fists side by side on the table and received a flung quarter to the knuckles. A good flinger could leave a bloody knuckle with one hit. I forget which coin hurt the most. Pretty gruesome game... Lol...can't believe I remembered that.
Early cents were distributed in kegs, sometimes the same kegs the planchets arrived in. I have also seen references to the Columbian exposition half dollars having been shipped in kegs but I find that questionable.
