Stupid Question ™
Aug. 2, 2001
By John Ruch
© 2001
Q: What happens to all the coins people throw into fountains and pools in malls and other public places?
—Spendthrift
A: The amount of coinage tossed into public fountains is mind-boggling. Any good-sized mall fountain collects thousands of dollars a year.
It appears that the owners of all such big-money fountains donate the coins to charity.
I surveyed five public pools and fountains in Boston and found coins (mostly pennies, but up to quarters) in all of them. The haul ranged from about 40 cents in a fountain in the Boston Common park to about $50 (1,500 coins) in the fancy downtown Copley Place mall.
The mall told me its fountain produces a whopping $4,000 to $6,000 a year, which is donated to the playground initiative of a local school. Similarly, Columbus, Ohio’s City Center Mall donates its coins to the Ronald McDonald House charities via Children’s Hospital. (A spokesperson didn’t know exactly how much money is collected during the weekly fountain-cleaning.)
A waterfall and pool in the Westin Hotel in downtown Boston contained about $45 during my visit. According to hotel spokesperson Steve Pellegrino, the pool is drained monthly and produces “a couple thousands of dollars each year.” He calls them “pennies from heaven,” since people like to toss coins from an escalator that runs high above the waterfall.
The proceeds have been donated to various charities that have solicited the hotel for donations; they’ve included the American Liver Foundation, the Anti-Defamation League, Catholic charities and the education fund of the Professional Certified Meeting Association.
Indeed, soliciting fountain owners is a great fund-raising technique. Washington, D.C. fund-raising wunderkind Danny Seo once raised $30,000 in 30 days, in part by soliciting fountain owners.
A reflecting pool at Kentucky’s capitol building also produces a couple thousand dollars a year, which is donated to the state’s child care agencies.
Boston’s Christian Science Center has a more laid-back way of donating coins tossed into its 670-foot-long reflecting pool; when the pool is drained in the fall, homeless people are allowed to enter it and gather the coins. This fall, they’ll collect at least seven bucks, which is how much I counted around the pool’s inside edge.
However, not all fountain coins end up as donations. It appears that when the haul is small, somebody along the line simply pockets the money. Kids often fish coins out of public fountains. In New Jersey in 1997, a library janitor got fire for draining a reflecting pool to steal coins, and he probably wasn’t the first of his kind.
There are also a few fountains that don’t want your coins. Oxidizing pennies can poison fish, while sun-heated coins can burn plants.
And coins can ruin a pool’s intended mood or aesthetic. That’s why the feds are trying to stop people from tossing them into the reflecting pools at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Robert F. Kennedy’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery.
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
March 28, 2008
March 27, 2008
Caesar Rodney Quarter
Stupid Question ™
March 18, 1999
By John Ruch
© 1999
Q: Who the hell is Caesar Rodney and what’s he doing on my quarter?
—D.R.
A: For the next decade, quarter-dollar coins will feature a reverse-side design commemorating each of the 50 states, issued in the sequence the states joined the union. (The front design is also slightly different, with a smaller Washington head and more of the coin slogans to make room for the reverse design.)
Canada had a similar program honoring its provinces. It was a huge success, creating great collecting demand and making the government a bundle. The US Mint likewise hopes to make, well, a mint—somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion to $5 billion.
Five new state quarters will be issued each year. A proposal to include US territories in the program may extend it by another year.
Delaware was the first state—and thus the first coin, beginning circulation on Jan. 4.
Delaware citizens voted on design proposals last year, rejecting such ideas as a quill pen, an outline of the state and a blue hen.
Instead, they chose Caesar Rodney, who is well known in Delaware but mistaken everywhere else for Paul Revere and/or some weird Canadian-coin icon.
Rodney was a Declaration of Independence signer, a Revolutionary War general and a Delaware überpolitician. A farmer, he owned slaves and kept domesticated deer.
The coin image is copied from a statue in Wilmington, Delaware, which is based on Rodney’s semi-famous ride.
In 1776, Rodney was one of three Delaware delegates to the Constitutional Congress. During debate over adoption of the Declaration, he was called away to put down a Tory uprising.
He was still away when the final vote came up. The other two Delaware delegates disagreed over independence; it seemed their votes would cancel each other, and Delaware wouldn’t join the Declaration, thus making it non-unanimous.
Rodney was alerted, and in one night rode 80 miles from Delaware to Philadelphia through terrible heat and thunderstorms, arriving just in time to cast his pro-independence, tie-breaker vote.
Folk tradition is that he rode alone on horseback, though he probably really took a carriage.
But he certainly cut a dramatic figure. Fellow Declaration signer Benjamin Rush described Rodney as “the oddest looking man in the world,” with a face “not much bigger than an apple.” Furthermore, Rodney swathed his face with a green silk veil to hide a facial tumor that eventually killed him.
Designs for 1999’s next four quarters—Pennsylvania (in circulation March 8), New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut—are already drawn up. Most opted for the bland state-outline idea.
Ohio’s quarter won’t come out until early 2002, and the Mint hasn’t yet asked the governor’s office to set up a design process.
Tip for early birds: Try to find a local myth about a green-silk-veiled slave owner.
March 18, 1999
By John Ruch
© 1999
Q: Who the hell is Caesar Rodney and what’s he doing on my quarter?
—D.R.
A: For the next decade, quarter-dollar coins will feature a reverse-side design commemorating each of the 50 states, issued in the sequence the states joined the union. (The front design is also slightly different, with a smaller Washington head and more of the coin slogans to make room for the reverse design.)
Canada had a similar program honoring its provinces. It was a huge success, creating great collecting demand and making the government a bundle. The US Mint likewise hopes to make, well, a mint—somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion to $5 billion.
Five new state quarters will be issued each year. A proposal to include US territories in the program may extend it by another year.
Delaware was the first state—and thus the first coin, beginning circulation on Jan. 4.
Delaware citizens voted on design proposals last year, rejecting such ideas as a quill pen, an outline of the state and a blue hen.
Instead, they chose Caesar Rodney, who is well known in Delaware but mistaken everywhere else for Paul Revere and/or some weird Canadian-coin icon.
Rodney was a Declaration of Independence signer, a Revolutionary War general and a Delaware überpolitician. A farmer, he owned slaves and kept domesticated deer.
The coin image is copied from a statue in Wilmington, Delaware, which is based on Rodney’s semi-famous ride.
In 1776, Rodney was one of three Delaware delegates to the Constitutional Congress. During debate over adoption of the Declaration, he was called away to put down a Tory uprising.
He was still away when the final vote came up. The other two Delaware delegates disagreed over independence; it seemed their votes would cancel each other, and Delaware wouldn’t join the Declaration, thus making it non-unanimous.
Rodney was alerted, and in one night rode 80 miles from Delaware to Philadelphia through terrible heat and thunderstorms, arriving just in time to cast his pro-independence, tie-breaker vote.
Folk tradition is that he rode alone on horseback, though he probably really took a carriage.
But he certainly cut a dramatic figure. Fellow Declaration signer Benjamin Rush described Rodney as “the oddest looking man in the world,” with a face “not much bigger than an apple.” Furthermore, Rodney swathed his face with a green silk veil to hide a facial tumor that eventually killed him.
Designs for 1999’s next four quarters—Pennsylvania (in circulation March 8), New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut—are already drawn up. Most opted for the bland state-outline idea.
Ohio’s quarter won’t come out until early 2002, and the Mint hasn’t yet asked the governor’s office to set up a design process.
Tip for early birds: Try to find a local myth about a green-silk-veiled slave owner.