Coins used as everyday items

Hello everyone! I wanted to talk about coins used as everyday items. And i do not mean jewelry or souvenirs, i mean something like this 1 kopek i have that was made into a button!

I would love to see what people have used coins for. Maybe a guitar pick, maybe a candle extinguisher or anything like that. So please show me if you have a coin made into something that was meant for everyday utility!

Polish aluminium coinage during the hyperinflation in the ’80 and ’90 (and probably even up to this day) very often ended up as washers for nails as it was cheaper than actual purpose-made washers. For example during installing of asphalt-impregnated paper on roofs 🙂

No one uses this as an everyday item, but I use a cull, overcleaned roman sestertius as a paperweight.

Henrythecoinguy

No one uses this as an everyday item, but I use a cull, overcleaned roman sestertius as a paperweight.

And, if you are wondering “Why use a piece of history as a paperweight?" The coin is worn smooth to the point of the design just being a tiny lump on the middle of the coin, and it is pitted badly due to a fight with bronze disease which is maybe still active.

I certainly wouldn't call this everyday, but I have this. Picked it up around 15-20 years ago in Ypres.

I don't keep it out on display anymore but its different if nothing else. 🤷‍♂️

I also worked with a farmer who used to melt down (non-silver) sixpences and threepences to use as solder & other metalwork because it was cheaper buying them in bulk than it was just buying raw metal! (At the time anyway, early 70s, right after decimalisation). He still had a supply in the 2020s when I met him. And he used a lot of them even then. His workshop must've looked like a bank vault in the 70s!

Apparently he literally bought/exchanged at face value by the wheelbarrow.