Don’t they have these in the US?
2 Likes
The EU is generally trying to crack down on money laundering, including limiting large cash transactions, by issuing rules that order member states to enact appropriate laws. While the general gist is specified by the EU, the details of these laws can differ between states.
Here in Germany, so far bank, insurance companies, tax advisers, real estate agents, and casinos, among others, must report cash transactions that exceed €10.000, so if you turn up at your bank with a suitcase full of large-denomination Euro notes, you’re going to be asked questions about exactly where that money comes from (and it had better not be drug sales, blackmail, or a bank heist). You also need to declare cash exceeding €10,000 if you enter or leave the country, e.g., at an airport. In addition there is talk about making €10.000 (or an even lower amount) a statutory hard limit beyond which cash transactions are not allowed at all, Italy-style. We Germans do love cash, though – much more so than, e.g., our Scandinavian neighbours –, so any such measure is bound to be deeply unpopular.
6 Likes
They do, but I think generally at shopping malls which are often not so populated anymore.
Now you have me wondering if those things sort change like the old see-through coin banks used to…
3 Likes
Oh, I remember those! Never found out how they workedz as a kid.
Another option would be dumping the pennies at an Airport. Or don’t you have those plastic cubes to leave your foreign currency in?
3 Likes
4 Likes
I once came across a very large jar filled with pennies for sale at the local Value Village. But because staff probably has no concept of pennies, they priced it at $3.99. There was almost $20 worth of pennies inside! And many of them dated back as far as the 1930s. I rolled most of them, cashed in $10 worth at the bank, and kept the oldest ones in a smaller container for posterity. Let someone else discover them in 50 years!
9 Likes
5 Likes
For those trying to picture this
The MegaPenny Project | Coin Collectors Blog (coinsblog.ws)
I’m kind of disappointed that they have the ingredients for a cool, new penny floor and don’t even realize it.
6 Likes
As in what would finally make a republican congress shut up about the debt ceiling Trillion-dollar coin - Wikipedia. If actually minted, I don’t know what it should look like, but maybe large and distinctive though not humongous.
3 Likes
Ok, I’m glad to see this when I no longer have a house! 
My grandparents kept pennies in a glass water cooler bottle (lucky it didn’t crack). My mom had large plastic pretzel barrels (smaller, but still heavy when half full). I have a glass bear the size of a honey dispenser. However, mine is just for Wheat pennies, because I’m trying to break the cycle.
Dealing with their collections took a while. Lots of sorting and rolling had to be done (pre-Coinstar). Turned out my grandmother had already set aside coins she or her parents collected, as well as ones that might be valuable, in little marmalade jars. 
5 Likes
Yes! I think this is the first mention of them here. Sorting through this million batch in search of them, then sorting later through that much smaller collection, seems more doable than other ideas I’ve heard for finding valuable ones.
5 Likes
Yes, we have those in airports with international flights. Dumping that many pennies in one would be pretty mean, though!
3 Likes
Penny Floor
Bother, beat me to it. My wife and I were at the Lincoln Restaurant in D.C. about 10 years ago. Their floors and IIRC some walls were pennies under epoxy. The 
penny was just out of circulation and I had a stash, so my wife made a few serving trays with pennies under epoxy.
Edit: Forgot to check, I hope none of my King George VI pennies are in that or WW2 “V” for Victory pennies… 
(Shameless plug for a friend: The bowl was done by Alyssa Getz as a demo piece during the glass blowing class she teaches.)
13 Likes
the flip side of that coin, is that cards create a greater cost for retailers ( and customers ) which is especially hard for small shops. and all of the profit of those costs goes straight to the big banks and wall street.
retailers in the us ( except for gas stations ) aren’t even allowed to charge different prices for plastic 
unless some part of all that changes - i’d argue dollars are still better ( in the us ) for the political and economic systems
4 Likes
Isn’t that up for debate? Cash needs someone to take profits to the bank, and to get smaller bills/change/whatever you end up giving more than you take back from the bank. Plus insurance premiums if you’re holding a significant amount of cash in a safe. I’m gonna include the safe itself as insurance right now.
I’d google it, but I don’t have the stomach for wading through the astroturf from visa/mastercard/ae.
1 Like
I tbink we’re gonna need a “show off your coin collection” thread
3 Likes
I think “Family found a million crawling pennies” would be a better story.
4 Likes
that’s labor, and labor’s cheap. i’ve worked plenty of retail, and cash is almost always preferred.
there are some businesses who take only cards. that might be easier for places like restaurants which need online orders anyway, or who are low volume - like an art vendor - where it’d be a pain to have the cash on hand to make change. not my world, but ive seen that
2 Likes
That’s not quite true any more. You can charge a surcharge for card use in many states. You can also offer a discount for cash.
4 Likes
