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It Was His First Time Flying. His 'Good Luck' Coins Backfired

Lu Chao fined $17K for throwing coins in plane's engine before Lucky Air flight in China

(Newser) - Throwing coins into a fountain is often considered lucky; tossing them anywhere else could get dicey. Lu Chao of China found that out quickly after the first-time flier threw a handful of yuan coins into the engine of his Lucky Air plane in February of last year as he was...

Penny Found in Cafeteria Change Is 'the Holy Grail'

Rare 1943 copper penny will sell for at least $120K

(Newser) - The year on the reddish penny 16-year-old Don Lutes Jr. spotted in the change he got at his high school cafeteria in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1947 stood out—1943. That year, amid the backdrop of World War II, the US Treasury minted zinc-coated steel pennies in an effort to conserve...

'Fake' Coin Will Actually Make Owner 'Quite Rich'

Turns out it's one of a handful of rare $5 Liberty Head Half Eagles, minted in 1854

(Newser) - In what a currency expert tells the San Francisco Chronicle is the equivalent of "finding an original Picasso at a garage sale," a rare coin from the California gold rush has been unearthed—said to be one of only four still in existence. The Independent reports the unnamed...

Treasure Tied to King Bluetooth Found on German Island
Teen Stumbles on
Treasure Tied to
King Bluetooth
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Teen Stumbles on Treasure Tied to King Bluetooth

Pearls, jewelry, coins unearthed by archaeologists in weekend dig

(Newser) - "Bluetooth" may strike you as an entirely modern word, but it's one found in the pages of history by way of Danish king Harald Gormsson, or "Harry Bluetooth", as he was known—and treasure connected to him has reportedly just been found. The Guardian reports 13-year-old Luca...

Determined Banker Counts 5K Pounds of Coins by Hand

All that work amounted to just $9.4K

(Newser) - A German bank employee spent six months dealing with a family's inheritance, which totaled in the millions—of coins. Deutsche Welle has the somewhat improbable story of Wolfgang Kemereit, a worker at the Oldenburg branch of the Deutsche Bundesbank who was tasked with counting 5,500 pounds of coins...

Searching for a Foundation, They Found a Treasure Trove Instead
Searching for a Foundation,
They Found Treasure Instead
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Searching for a Foundation, They Found Treasure Instead

'I thought how I'd never again see something like it'

(Newser) - They were searching for an old infirmary. What they uncovered was an "exceptional and extremely rare treasure": 2,200 silver coins, 21 gold coins, a gold signet ring, gold foil, and a circular object also made of gold. It's a collection unlike any ever found, according to French...

Experts Say First American Coin Has Been Found

Prototype was minted in 1783

(Newser) - Coin experts say they have found the first silver piece minted by the United States—one likely held by the most en vogue of Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton. David McCarthy figured the silver coin had to be one-of-a-kind after spotting it in an auction catalog. Its front features the all-seeing...

Passenger Throws Coins Into Plane Engine for 'Good Luck'

Flight from Shanghai was delayed for 5 hours

(Newser) - Chucking a handful of coins into a jet engine is no way to guarantee that fortune will smile on your flight, an elderly passenger at Shanghai Pudong International Airport discovered Tuesday. Police say the 80-year-old woman threw coins into the engine "for good luck" as she prepared to board...

Turtle's Coin-Eating Habit Proves Fatal

'Bank' dies 2 weeks after surgery to remove 11lbs of change from her stomach

(Newser) - A 25-year-old sea turtle in Thailand who swallowed nearly a thousand coins tossed by tourists seeking good luck died Tuesday, two weeks after having surgery to remove the coins from its stomach, reports the AP . The cause of death was blood poisoning from the loose change, said Dr. Achariya Sailasuta,...

Tossing Coins for Good Luck Has Unfortunate Side Effect

A sea turtle ended up with an 11-pound ball of coins in her stomach

(Newser) - Tossing coins in a fountain for luck is a popular superstition, but a similar belief brought misery to a sea turtle in Thailand from whom doctors have removed 915 coins. Veterinarians in Bangkok operated Monday on the 25-year-old female green sea turtle nicknamed "Bank," whose indigestible diet was...

The Gold Could Be Worth $100M. She Has to Give It Back

Rare Double Eagles were pilfered from Mint decades ago

(Newser) - The US government is $100 million richer after the latest ruling in a strange case involving some long-lost gold coins. In 2003, Pennsylvania's Joan Langbord says she found 10 "Double Eagle" coins from 1933 in a safe-deposit box that once belonged to her father, jeweler Israel Switt. The...

1970 Quarter Selling for Thousands on eBay

Sample was mistakenly printed over a 1941 Canadian quarter

(Newser) - An eBay sale of a 1970 US quarter may at first glance appear routine, but a closer look reveals what its seller calls "one of the most fascinating and intriguing proof mint errors ever discovered"—and a sky-high price to match. Woman's World says AOL.com first...

Workers Laying Pipes Unearth Coins—1,300 Pounds of Them

Their mint condition suggests they were never in circulation

(Newser) - What should've been a simple maintenance project involving new water pipes in Spain has become something else entirely. Construction workers near Seville Wednesday stumbled upon about 1,300 pounds of bronze Roman coins from the third and fourth centuries crammed into 19 ancient amphoras, the AFP reports. The Washington ...

Brink's Worker Swiped $200K in Quarters: FBI

That's 10K pounds' worth of coin, which he's accused of replacing with beads

(Newser) - An ex-money processing manager for Brink's Company in Alabama who had access to bags and bags of quarters swapped out coins for beads and made off with nearly $200,000 in 2014, per the FBI. Stephen Dennis, 49, has agreed to plead guilty and pay Brink's back for...

Someone Just Paid $1,997,500 for This Dime

Only 24 of them were ever made

(Newser) - Whatever disparaging cliche you've heard about the lowly dime—dime a dozen, nickel and dimed, dime's worth of difference—it's not true of this dime. No, this particular coin that went to auction Thursday evening in Tampa, Fl., sold for just under $2 million. The 1894-S dime...

Weirdest Dime You'll Ever See Heads to Auction

It was struck onto a nail and could fetch more than $10K

(Newser) - In probably one of the oddest items to come to the world of coin collecting, Heritage Auctions has announced the sale of a Roosevelt dime that was accidentally (or some say deliberately) struck onto a zinc nail—and the dime/nail is estimated to be worth roughly $10,000. In the...

Man Cashes in 500K Lucky Pennies

Otha Anders' $5K fortune will help pay off a dental bill

(Newser) - Otha Anders picked up his first lucky penny more than 45 years ago. Since then, he's gone out of his way to get as many as possible, each one a "God-given incentive reminding me to always be thankful," the 73-year-old tells the News-Star of Monroe, La. "...

ISIS Rolls Out Own Currency, Music Video

Propaganda recording intros new coins to replace 'satanic conception of banks'

(Newser) - Fed up with what it describes as the "satanic conception of banks," ISIS says it's releasing its own new currency, and it's put out a nearly one-hour-long video to explain it, the Jerusalem Post reports. The video released by the group's media arm explains its...

Boston Library Learns More Than Art Has Gone Missing

Investigation was launched into Rembrandt, Durer works last month

(Newser) - Apparently more than just valuable artwork is missing from the Boston Public Library's archives. A library spokeswoman says a retired employee who now volunteers told administrators last week that gold coins originally placed in the cornerstone of the main building have been missing for decades. The spokeswoman says the...

Rumor Leads to Library&#39;s Priceless Coin Trove
Professor Looks Into Rumor, Finds Priceless Coin Trove
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Professor Looks Into Rumor, Finds Priceless Coin Trove

Coins had sat in university archives for 80 years

(Newser) - In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the swashbuckling professor tells his students that "70% of all archaeology is done in the library"—but at the University at Buffalo, it turned out to be 100% for assistant classics professor Philip Kiernan. He followed up on a rumor about...

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