United States Coin Mutilation Laws
Arizona Coin Collector
I looked up information on the United States
coin mutilation laws. I was more curious to
know more with all the television advertising
that has been going on with the "memorabilia
jambalaya" on Barack Obama that has included
commemorative coins.
I like the story below about the "V"
nickle in 1883. "racketeer nickels."
On the story link below, it is the fourth
paragraph down that got my attention.
"Section 331 takes aim at these types of
deceptions, but not at the creation of coin
novelties".
As a boy growing up, I did place pennies on
the railroad track to see a slow moving fright
train change a penny into copper foil.
--------------------------------------------
FROM:
http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v09n36a25.html
U.S. COIN MUTILATION LAWS
Regarding the question on U.S. coin mutilation
laws, Katie Jaeger writes: "I researched the
topic recently - and came up with the following
quotation from Title 18 at the website
straightdope.com:
Title 18, Section 331 states, "Whoever
fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs,
diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of
the coins coined at the mints of the United
States, or any foreign coins which are by law made
current or are in actual use or circulation as
money within the United States, shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than
five years, or both."This law enacted in 1909 was
strictly enforced at first, bringing an abrupt end
to countermarking, elongating, carving, cutting
away blank fields, and pushing out reliefs on coins.
The Treasury Department, however, has come to view
the decree as hinging on its second word:
fraudulently. Examples of fraudulent tampering are
the ancient practice of shaving metal off the edges
of solid gold coins, or the 1883 practice of making
"racketeer nickels." (When the Mint issued a nickel
design which did not bear the words FIVE CENTS on
the reverse, but instead employed a Roman numeral V
just like the one on the $5 gold piece, some
miscreants plated gold on their nickels and passed
them as $5 pieces.)
Section 331 takes aim at these types of deceptions,
but not at the creation of coin novelties. The law
was probably responsible for the practice of
stickering and capping coins, which enabled
advertising on coins without altering them. Elongated
roller machines did disappear for a while, but the
law never stopped kids from putting pennies on the
railroad tracks!"
John and Nancy Wilson write: "Here is information
from the Wikipedia on the legality of making
elongated coins in the U.S. and Great Britain:
"The process of creating elongated coins is legal
in the United States, Japan, South Africa and parts
of Europe. In the United States, U.S. Code Title 18,
Chapter 17, Section 331 prohibits "the mutilation,
diminution and falsification of United States coinage."
The foregoing statute, however, does not prohibit
the mutilation of coins if the mutilated coins are not
used fraudulently, i.e., with the intention of creating
counterfeit coinage. Because elongated coins are made
mainly as souvenirs, mutilation for this purpose is
legal.
It is no longer illegal in Great Britain to mutilate
the image of the Queen, It is still illegal in Canada
and blank planchets, slugs or U.S. pennies are
occasionally used, though this law is often ignored
both by the users of the machine and law enforcement.
Full Story
Kerry Rodgers writes: "I have an article on elongated
coins in the September issue of Coin News.
(That's the UK fella). I have specific quotes from
the Royal Mint and UK Treasury folk as to its legality.
These quotes came from bureaucrats and lawyers - need
I say more? They neatly avoid saying making
stretchies is illegal - in so many words - but make it
clear they don't approve. They have never prosecuted for
it and thereby tested the law as they understand it.
In the EU it is a whole different ball game and even
though stretched EU cents are offered on eBay and
elsewhere, it is a no-no. As the UK is part of the
EU it could be illegal to squish EU cents in the UK,
where they have no currency, whereas doing it to UK
money itself may not be illegal if you have a smart
lawyer. What was that about the law being an ass?
The elongation issue in the US has been discussed at
length in several places and I defer to my North
American colleagues. It is not illegal from what I
can gather. Nor is it in New Zealand since a change
in the law sometime back overlooked deforming coins
although it has some harsh things to say about
melting them. A similar situation exists in Australia."
Wayne Homren, Editor
..
shreadvector
Ken Barr
Collector" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Title 18, Section 331 states, "Whoever
> fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs,
> diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of
> the coins coined at the mints of the United
> States, or any foreign coins which are by law made
> current or are in actual use or circulation as
> money within the United States, shall be fined
> under this title or imprisoned not more than
> five years, or both."This law enacted in 1909 was
> strictly enforced at first, bringing an abrupt end
> to countermarking, elongating, carving, cutting
> away blank fields, and pushing out reliefs on coins.
This is the main reason that love tokens on host coins
dated after 1900 are quite hard to find. It's my
suspicion that most jewelers who surreptitiously
continued to create these would use pre-1900 coins
in order to provide "plausible deniability" of their
crimes, claiming the tokens had been created before
the enactment of the law. Kinda hard to do if the
coin is dated 1912, though, eh?
The "pushing out" part is even odder, as the person
who created these "repousse coins" received a
government patent for the process, and then was
jailed for selling the items created by using the
patented process ... He even soldered a "patent bar"
across the back showing the patent number and
date on the early pieces, but was convicted and
jailed nevertheless ...
--
Ken Barr Numismatics k...@kenbarr.com
P. O. Box 32541 website: http://www.kenbarr.com
San Jose, CA 95152 (souvenir cards, MPC, Hickey Bros tokens)
408-272-3247 Next show: Chico CC 12/14 (tentative, no table)
Arizona Coin Collector
"Ken Barr" <k...@kenbarr.com> wrote in message
news:ken-4D2F06.1...@aioe.cjb.net...
Hello Ken
This is not coin related.
I have not been to San Jose, California since the late 1990's
to help work on a project with Solectron. Back then, the
price for a home was real high.
I just wonder how it is now.
.
Paul Ciszek
In article <f2a4053a-5d21-42b1...@r36g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
shreadvector <fred.e....@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>http://capturedlightning.com/frames/interesting1.html
The twonie stayed together?!
--
Please reply to: | "One of the hardest parts of my job is to
pciszek at panix dot com | connect Iraq to the War on Terror."
Autoreply is disabled | -- G. W. Bush, 9/7/2006
Ken Barr
Collector" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
We've had quite a downturn in housing prices this past year ...
Houses in San Jose are now priced at only three times
what they are worth rather than six times what they
are worth ...
[Disclaimer: I own a condo in San Jose, LONG since paid
off ... happy to not have a mortgage payment every month!]
Lorrie S.
without even looking at them. I also throw them down on the street, in
parking lots, in my neighbors yard. They are useless. Speaking of my
neighbor, I also throw large pieces of scrap metal, trash, bricks and blocks
for his lawn mower to run over, coz he's a piece of shit.
"Arizona Coin Collector" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:06qdnYPygLBu9ajU...@earthlink.com...
Mike Marotta
wrote:
> I looked up information on the United States
> coin mutilation laws.
> FROM:http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v09n36a25.html
> Regarding the question on U.S. coin mutilationlaws,
> Katie Jaeger writes: "I researched the ...
> "racketeer nickels." (When the Mint issued a nickel
> design which did not bear the words FIVE CENTS on
> the reverse, but instead employed a Roman numeral V
> just like the one on the $5 gold piece, some ...
Clearly, that is erroneous and I sent the eSylum a note on it. Jaeger
is relatively new to numismatics. As an established writer, she
started at the top and has had QDB to help her along.
If you want to search the US Code for federal laws about money and
coinage, I recommend getting closer to the source.
http://uscode.house.gov/