The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 33, August 19, 2007, Article 20

COIN REGISTRATION OFFICE INTERNATIONAL COIN SPECIFICATION DATABASE

On the topic of subway slugs I wrote: "Using cheaper coins
from another country to fool vending machines is an age-old
pastime.  I wouldn't be surprised if someone maintains a web
page with a table listing what coins or tokens are known to
be effective substitutes for other, higher-valued coins or
tokens.  Can anyone locate such a chart for us?"

Alan Roy writes: "Their site doesn't have the information
available yet to the public, but while researching the Mint
Directors' Conference (or MDC), the trade association for
national mints, I found the website for the Coin Registration
Office.  Currently handled by the Monnaie de Paris, the CRO
maintains a database of technical specifications of the
coins of 43 countries.

"According to the website, the purpose of the CRO 'was to
allow members to consider whether a new coin would have any
consequent problems for the coinage systems of their own
country, or other member countries, and to identify potential
misuse in vending machines.'  I can only assume that the
German subway system mentioned hadn't checked the database."

To access the Coin Registration Office database, see:
coinro.com/

[I'm curious - do our friends at Krause Publications and other
guidebook publishers make use of this database in compiling
catalog entries for new coins?  It sounds like a very useful tool.

Once word gets out that a certain coin can be used to cheat
vending machines, some people will go to great lengths to
lay in a supply. Tom Delorey has a special way of dealing
with them.  -Editor]

Tom writes: "About ten years ago, people in Chicago discovered
that German one pfennig pieces would usually work in the Chicago
subway turnstiles. We got many calls at the coin shop from people
asking if they could buy a quantity of the pfennigs. Since we
knew what they wanted them for, we would usually ask them as
innocently as possible why they wanted the coins. The most common
answer was for an 'art project' of some unspecified kind. We
always declined the sale.

"One day a caller said that his daughter was taking German in
school, and that he wanted one hundred of the pfennigs for her
to give out to her classmates. I said to come on down, and that
we'd be happy to take care of him. He came in all excited, and
I smiled and presented him with one hundred German two pfennig
coins to give out, at the same cost as one hundred one pfennigs
(i.e., one dollar U.S.). He sputtered and kept saying that he
needed one pfennigs, but couldn't bring himself to explain the
real reason why. I just kept smiling and telling him that
these were better because they were bigger. He left without
the coins."

 BRITISH COINS USED AS SLUGS IN GERMAN SUBWAY SYSTEM
 esylum_v10n32a14.html

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

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