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OUR BUILDING HAS A coin-operated laundry system, so our pound bag of flour for a Wisconsin housewife named Hazel.
wash cycles officially start with a trip to the bank for a roll of She made amazing apple pies and put a wedge of cheddar un-
quarters. I recently took home a little paper pack, and was der the pie while it was still hot—it came to the table all melty.
delighted to find inside a quarter that was minted in 1940. She’s gone now, but her kids are still talking about those pies,
It had been handled so much that the perimeter ridge was and I’m still staring at her quarter.
flattened and the coin almost The 1941 quarter was
completely smooth. George spent carefully, after the at-
Washington’s features are tack on Pearl Harbor; 25 cents
blurry, rather than crisply em- then was worth about $3.80 in
bossed, his chin softened, the today’s money. A 1948 quarter
waves in his wig long gone. bought two cans of franks and
I took out the next coin, beans for a curly-haired folk
which read 1943. And the singer, who ate them onboard
next, 1941. The whole roll, it a train.
turned out, was a currency In 70 years, these quarters
time capsule. I couldn’t pos- were flipped thousands of
sibly spend these quarters. times to settle thousands of
I was intrigued, though, disputes. They slid through
and called First Hawaiian hundreds of vending ma-
Bank. Were the coins being chines, and were slipped
set aside for some purpose, under the pillows of dozens of
perhaps to take out of circula- 6-year-olds who had recently
tion? No, said Gary Caulfield, lost teeth. These quarters
the bank’s vice chairman, IT were bet on horses, and
and operations group. As long helped buy polio shots and
as the weight of the coin is Elvis records. There’s one in
correct, it is still legal tender, there that paid for milk shakes
even if it’s hard to read the face on a first date—a date that led
of the coin. As far as the bank to a second date, and eventu-
is concerned, it doesn’t matter ally marriage and grandkids
what year a coin was minted. for one couple. Wouldn’t they
According to the U.S. De- like to have that quarter, the
partment of the Treasury, the average coin lasts about 30 years. one that started it all?
In Caulfield’s experience, coins are pretty sturdy. “They’re very Then a hush must have fallen over these busy coins. They
PHOTO: LINNY MORRIS, ILLUSTRATION: JING JING TSONG

rarely damaged, unless, say, a coin was left in the bottom of a
boat and sat in seawater for a month.” If a coin is too mangled
to use, the bank returns it to the nearest Federal Reserve Bank;
in our case, it’s in San Francisco. The feds send it to the U.S.
Mint, which melts down old coins to create new ones.
More than 20 billion coins pass through Federal Reserve
Banks each year. So how did I get a stash of 70-year-old
quarters? “It was just a coincidence that you got them; some
customer had probably brought them in,” says Caulfield.
I started thinking of all the places these quarters have been,
all the people that have touched them, and began making up
little histories. The 1944 quarter, for example, bought a five-
were put aside and forgotten. Until one day, someone found a
tin filled with old change and thought, “Eh, I should take this
to the bank.”
I’m happy they found me, these quarters. I’m not a collec-
tor, but old coins fill me with glee. I love the idea that you’re
having a normal moment, such as buying a coffee, and then you
look down in your hand and realize you’re holding a little piece
of history.
Maybe that’s why it’s called change.
For more of Wagner’s writing, see her “Guilty Pleasures” blog at
honolulumagazine.com.

76 JANUARY 2010 www.honolulumagazine.com

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