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Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

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Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#101

Post by eszed »

cxr wrote: post #85
eszed wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they're still a pain to spend, because too many people refuse to believe they're real money. Or else don't want to take them because there isn't a slot in their cash drawer. I inherited a couple of bundles from my dad last year (he made $2 bills his "thing", much like Woz, because he enjoyed arguing with cashiers), and exchanged them all at the bank for "real money".

I believe that you have run into difficulty with some person(s) not understanding that $2 bills are real money. I don't believe that they've been anywhere nearly as much of "a pain to spend" for you as you're stating. You're just gabbing.

They're socially awkward to spend, because people don't want to take them. That was true each of the four or five times I used bills from my father's stash, though I was outright refused only once. Unlike my father, I don't enjoy needlessly provoking minor hostility, so I turned them into the bank. We're all just gabbing on the internet, my dude. You might find $2 bills a fun investment.

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#102

Post by nemo »

ekaryotic wrote: post #90
nemo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more or less round. While modern milled coining created nice neatly rounded coins, throughout the history of hammered coins they were very rarely anything like a perfectly rounded coin. They were creating these things in a mass production environment where they made tens of thousands (or more the Romans), quality control was focused on weight over all else. For silver coins and gold some issuers did often try t…

Do you happen to know the reason the term for english is sasanach in irish language. i.e. is there a connection between sasanach and sassanian.

Fairly sure it's just a coincidence, Sasanian refers to the dynasty started by Sasan, an ancient Persian king. Sassenach seems to have its roots in "Saxon".

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#103

Post by Archelaos »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #75
RyanOD wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he get the coin back after the museum is done showing it?

"Finders keepers" is a legal principle only common in common law countries. In most of the world, in no way could you be construed to own something just because you found it in the ground. In most civil law countries, everything always has a legal owner (usually reverting to the state when no other legal owner can be found), and if you just "find" something and take it, you have committed theft. In Germany, the antiq…

> If an old coin is deemed to not be historically significant, it probably belongs to the landowner.

According to § 984 BGB, a historically insignificant find belongs to the finder and landowner in equal shares.[1] If the find is so important that it is considered a "cultural monument" (Kulturdenkmal), the law of the individual German state determines who owns it and whether or how much of a compensation is payed to the finder.[2]

[1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__984.html (in German)

[2] For details see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schatzregal#Deutschland (in German)

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#104

Post by WalterGR »

eszed wrote: post #58
genxy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get new $2 from your bank

And they're still a pain to spend, because too many people refuse to believe they're real money. Or else don't want to take them because there isn't a slot in their cash drawer. I inherited a couple of bundles from my dad last year (he made $2 bills his "thing", much like Woz, because he enjoyed arguing with cashiers), and exchanged them all at the bank for "real money".

> I inherited a couple of bundles from my dad last year (he made $2 bills his "thing", much like Woz, because he enjoyed arguing with cashiers)

For the unaware, Steve Wozniak buys sheets of uncut $2 bills and spends them. He’ll walk into a location and tear off a $2 bill like a serrated coupon.

There’s probably a better link but this was at hand: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/steve-wozniak-2-dollar-bil...

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#105

Post by refurb »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #24
SoftTalker wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can walk around the USA and find flint arrowheads ... not sure the Native Americans used coins as such.

Yeah the wild thing about the southwest is the open-air museum aspect of it, not the layers on layers. For petroglyphs, the southwest has so many that date to the high middles ages (~1100 AD) you can stumble on them by accident as a hiker. AFAIK the oldest in the area are still thought to be these ones[0], about 9000 years ago. (Always controversial to date rocks I guess, but the oldest North American mummy should be…

Indeed! If you're around Taos, NM, there are several national/state parks that contain the remaining structures of the Pueblans.

The Puye Cliff Dwellings are over 1,000 year olds, and you can free roam most of them. It is quite wild being able to go into cave dwellings in the cliff. I'd highly recommend visiting if anyone is considering it.

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#106

Post by singularity2001 »

riffraff wrote: post #61
exitb wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there anything resembling tourism in 300 BC?

not only there was, people were still people and we have roman and greek graffiti on monuments ("X was here" and similar).

according to medieval reports the white limestone surfaces of the pyramids were absolutely cluttered with Egyptian Roman and other in eligible graffiti

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#107

Post by lukan »

QuercusMax wrote: post #70
lukan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably just ignorance, but there actually was a gap in that time in some areas in germany. Close to my hometown are the remains of an old ancient fortress - that was build by mostly unknown people and abandoned at 400 b.c. and only 1000 years later there were settlements again. A bit rougher area, though. The flat area of Berlin on the other hand, had human settlement since 60 000 years.

I don't think anyone requires every hectare to have been developed in order to consider an area inhabited. Neanderthals are named after the Neander valley (Thal) near Dusseldorf, so I think we can definitely say yes, that humans have lived in Germany since long before antiquity.

"that humans have lived in Germany since long before antiquity."

Yes, but there were definitely whole areas not habited for quite some time .. likely reason, climate change! (It got colder at that time)

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#108

Post by hypendev »

hecturchi wrote: post #20

As a child I was walking down the street and kicked something by chance that sounded metallic. 150 year old coin, irrc. Just there on the asphalt next to the sidewalk. Unfortunately bronze, with trimmed edges, common mint and worth very little. But if you tell me someone just stumbles onto and old coin in the street just lime that, I pretty much believe it.

I have a similar story, but I was playing on the beach. There was a mound right next to it and I would love to play there, and the mound had some funny stones. One of them was square with something painted on it, I was fascinated by romans so I annoyed my parents with "I found a mosaic!" and took it with me.

Turns out, years later, they excavated a roman villa there. Funnily enough, the same beach has roman villas, dinosaur prints, austro-hungarian tunnels and yugoslavian bunkers. Quite a lot of history in one pretty beach.

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#109

Post by petepete »

cammasmith wrote: post #13

Can't even imagine what it's like to live in Europe. Just casually going on a walk and finding a coin that is over 2 millennia old. Just another Tuesday.

There's a pub a few minutes from me that was built in the 1620s and every time I go past it strikes be just how long ago that is.

That's roughly when The Mayflower set off, and St Peter's Basilica was built. And it's still a working pub, open every day.

https://www.theoldeboarshead.co.uk/about-the-pub/

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