I've been picking through stuff to sell at a yardsale scheduled for today. However, my sone can't help, so it'll be next week. Lots of scrubbing old dishes and kitchen stuff, washing dusty tee shirts, etc. I took a jar of coins to the local market and put them through a coin sorter (charge is 20% now, ouch). It kicked out a quarter and dime, both dated 1963, and I got to thinking. The internet is a wonderful thing. I found this . Good grief, when did this happen?? Most of the coins minted now are worth less than half their value in metals. But silver coins before 1963 are worth much more. Nickles generally are worth 6 cents in metal and the price of nickle is rising. So I sorted coins in another jar last night in front of the tv. I found a couple Kennedy half-dollars, a dozen or so wheat-ear pennies, a few dimes and quarters pre-1963, and a teacup full of pre-1982 pennies. The wheat-ear pennies will go into the yardsale. I'll probably ask $3 for the dozen, and let them talk me down to $1.50 if necessary. I'll just hang onto the older coins and nickles and take the modern coins to the sorter. But this has me creeped out and I have a story about that. ;)

In 1994 I took the kids to see the solar eclipse in Chile. (There are other stories about why and how) After the eclipse we went to Macchu Picchu, since it wasn't (relatively) far away. When we arrived in Peru, the airport was full of vendors of jewelry with heavy round dangles. We passed them by. As we travelled and looked around Peru, it was obvious that they had just gone through a disastrous money crisis. Inflation had become SO bad that they had had to replace all thier money with new money. I still have one bill for 5 million that was worth 5 in the new money. After the fact, I realized that those heavy round pendants were the old coins. I wish now that I had bought one, not for the fashion, but for the lesson in it. Money and value are different things, and you have to be careful.

So I'm off to the coin sorter again, and then back to sorting and deciding.