Coins that have been cut

Over a period of time, I have found 4 2c ,s and a $2 coin that have had pieces cut off them. Up to 1/2. All are straight cuts.
Anyone out there have any idea why they were cut???

Could it be lawnmowing damage?

Not sure, maybe a way to stop 2 kids fighting over it lol!
but to this day almost every sprint car and midget in Australian speedway has a 10c coin ground down and welded in as an end cap on the rear crash bar..

A coin is very hard.. I know this from witnessing a 5 10 20 50 $1 and $2 coins being drilled with about a 2mm drill and where tied along a 100lb mono fishing line then buried as a test patch in a garden, I thought it would go nicely through the $1 and $2 like brass but no it was very hard to my surprise

I have often wondered about this myself. I have quite a few cut coins. Some pennies and half pennies as well. One forum member even posted pics of a round 50 cent piece neatly sliced.Some of the cuts seem to be too clean to be a mower which don't have the sharpest blades. I can think of no other explanation though.

Here's an article on clipped british coins, with the penny at the bottom being of most interest as being a manufacturing error, and how to spot such an error. Though I suspect most modern coinage is cut through mower blades, can't really think of any other reason.

http://www.coinsgb.com/Error_Coins/Clipped_Planchet.html

My cut silver 50c.

Thanks GP. couldn't remember who posted the cut 50c. Too many posts to read. 8)

I think it's most probably damage done by reel/cylinder mowers, which cut like scissors between the revolving blades and a fixed anvil bar at the rear, rather than the common rotary mowers, which would be more likely to scar a coin as they threw it aside, than to neatly snip a chunk off.

mowers seem to be able to do straight cuts on copper, and silver. I find plenty of goldies cut, and bent, but never seen one sliced cleanly.

I'd that would do the job Grubstake, despite being a relatively clean cut on my 50c, a few other minor dings suggest that it was thrown around for a bit, possibly in such a mower. After all, it did come from the grassed spectator area surrounding a rugby oval.

rocketaroo said:

mowers seem to be able to do straight cuts on copper, and silver. I find plenty of goldies cut, and bent, but never seen one sliced cleanly.

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Yeah copper wouldn't put up much of a fight but that 50c looks pretty serious, if it has no bent or rolled edges maybe it was ground?

DeckyDan said:

rocketaroo said:

mowers seem to be able to do straight cuts on copper, and silver. I find plenty of goldies cut, and bent, but never seen one sliced cleanly.

Click to expand...

Yeah copper wouldn't put up much of a fight but that 50c looks pretty serious, if it has no bent or rolled edges maybe it was ground?

Click to expand...

Round 50c is 80% silver so fairly soft.

Ramjet said:

DeckyDan said:

rocketaroo said:

mowers seem to be able to do straight cuts on copper, and silver. I find plenty of goldies cut, and bent, but never seen one sliced cleanly.

Click to expand...

Yeah copper wouldn't put up much of a fight but that 50c looks pretty serious, if it has no bent or rolled edges maybe it was ground?

Click to expand...

Round 50c is 80% silver so fairly soft.

Click to expand...

Oh ok, I don't know anything about coins or gems, they are all new to me at the moment

I know at least some were cut by a young me just messing around with tools as a lad.

Bet I'm not Robinson Crusoe there.

They do melt with intense gas axing. :lol:

And flatten out under a train :lol:

Wally69 said:

And flatten out under a train :lol:

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I have put coins under trains several times. Ya can roll em out like dough until they are as thin as foil.

All of my coins have very neat cuts so i dont think they would have been <mowered> The $2 is cut in half and the 2c,s all have different size sections cut out of them.
None of them have any other damage on them

Could have been a way of using small change. Chop a penny in half and you got a halfpenny or hapny:

http://www.coinsofourpast.com/coinpages/colonialcoinpage.html

Pieces o eight:
http://www.olddominionforge.com

Chopping board:
http://www.jefpat.org/JPPMArchaelogyKidsSite/webpages/artifacts_pg1.html

It seems that coins with cuts once had a use, or it was just a cool party trick to show with some steel scissors. I've read from currency, to entertainment, to jewellery. Something that was clear in my search was that coins very easily cut under kitchen knife quite commonly.

some guy with bolt cutters and bored. snip snip.