It pays to know your history.

You see odd things working in retail.  I'm not talking about the customers here, I mean what I find in the till.  People do strange things to coins like punch holes in them, or take tin snips and actually slice off bits, or just warp and bend them to the point where, if you put them in a change machine, it would jam the darn thing up.  Then there's the foreign coins that folks pass around without realizing it's not legal U.S. tender.  Since we're right next to Canada, we of course get our share of Canadian coins, but I've also found copper 2-euro coins in the penny cup, British fivepence mixed in with dimes (same diameter, but almost twice as thick), money from Thailand and Panama and all sorts of places.  Most customers don't think twice when they dole them out because many of the coins are roughly the same size and shape as U.S. coins, so I'll slide 'em back when they give it to me and let them know that this isn't going to work.  But some cashiers don't bother to look, hence how these oddballs end up in my drawer.  I remember somebody once took a 2-dollar Canadian coin, which looks like a silver dollar with a gold center...how could you not give that a closer look?  Then there was the time I found a plastic penny (the kind that come in "play money" packs at the toy store) sitting in the till.

And then you get what happened two nights ago.  My boss was collecting up drawers from the various registers around the store so he could count them in the back, and as he passed near mine, he said, "I need you to look at something."

"Sure, whatcha got?" I asked, having no clue he was about to drop these two curiosities in my hand:

Now keep in mind that it's a little after 9 o'clock at night, and I was getting pretty tired.  But I did recognize the "seated Liberty" image right off the bat.  Then I saw "1861".  Then I flipped it over and read "Confederate States of America Half Dol." but didn't notice the middle yet (which you might've picked out already).  I looked up at my boss and said, "It has to be fake."

"How do you know?  It could be real.  Look at it!"

"Yeah, and it looks too good for being 150 years old," I replied.  Keep in mind that, around five years before, I found two U.S. half-dollars from the 1890s in one of the tills, so this was plausible...but those other coins had also been worn down so much from being in circulation that the images on both sides were almost obliterated.  I bought 'em off the till anyways because they're still interesting and (more important) pure silver.  If you've got any silver coins, take one and drop it on a table, it'll make a very bright ping when it hits.  Modern coins have a slightly duller sound.  As for those two Rebel beauties... "If these were real, they'd be made of silver," I told my boss, then dropped one on the counter, where it landed with a metallic thud.  "Silver doesn't thud.  They're also a little thick for half-dollars."

He wasn't convinced.  "I don't know.  I've got some coins at home that..."

"And I've also studied up on the Civil War and the 1800s in general," I interrupted.  "Precious metals were scarce during that time.  The Union had to issue 'shinplasters' instead, little slips of paper with coin denominations on them.  And I know for a fact that the Confederacy was dead broke, so I somehow doubt they were minting coins.  Paper money, yeah -- I've got a few reproductions at home -- but I've never seen coins."  I held one up and flipped it so he could see the front, saying, "Plus it's got a 'seated Liberty' on the obverse.  Those were on Union coins.  Why would the Confederacy use a Union symbol?  I'm 95% sure this is a fake, probably a souvenir from a Civil War site.  I'll give you a dollar for 'em, since they were probably cashed in as half-dollars."

"Now hold on, what if they are real?" he said.  "They could be worth a lot of money!"

"Don't worry, I was going to check them out online tonight.  If they're real...and I'm almost positive they're not...you'll get half."

My boss still hemmed and hawed a bit, since he wanted one for himself.  Trouble was, he didn't have any cash on him, and I did.  He wanted to leave one in the drawer until tomorrow, but I told him, "If somebody was dumb enough to take 'em, they'll be dumb enough to give it out.  Then we'll have a customer complaining that we gave them fake money...or worse, they'll call us racist because it says 'Confederate'."  So he took my dollar, and since there were no customers at the moment, I continued to look over the coins.  When he came back around for my till, I said to him, "I'm now up to 99%."

"Why is that?" he asked.

"Because this coin has a seam."  I held one of the coins up edgewise so you could see the line running through the milling (which was in poor shape).  "That means this was done in a mold."

"What're you talking about?  I've seen that on quarters before."

"No, that's sandwiching: the little stripe on the edge of quarters is where the copper core is showing through.  Ever see how coins are made?"  The boss said he hadn't, so I put my fist on the counter and said, "They make one die with the reverse image on it, then place a blank coin on that."  I laid the coin on my fist.  "Then they take another die with the obverse image on it, and slam 'em together."  I took my other fist and brought it down on the coin.  "You've never seen a coin where the blank slipped and the image is off?"  Turned out that he hadn't.  "Also," I added, "this thing smells like a Slinky.  What do they make those out of?  Aluminum?" (I looked it up later: Slinkys are made of steel, so presumably these coins are as well)

The boss still had his doubts as to my assessment, and began to walk away with my drawer.  Before he got too far, my eyes finally fell upon the indentation in the middle of coin, which just looked like damage at a glance.  It was only when you held it at the proper angle that the evidence became clear, probably due to the florescent lighting in the store.  After checking the other coin, I ran up to my boss, holding out both coins.  "I'm 100% now!" I told him, and pointed at the "damage": the word COPY etched into the metal.  We'd both missed it every damn time we looked at the coins.  "You still want one?" I asked, and he said yes, so until he gives me fifty cents, I'm gonna be walking around with fake Confederate money in my pocket.

Before I wrap this up, I have to admit that it turned out I was wrong on one point: the Confederacy did have plans to make half-dollar coins, but they never went into circulation.  All that exists are 4 examples, which the copies we found are based on.  The reason why the "seated Liberty" is on the obverse is because they were made at the New Orleans mint, which the Confederacy took over when Louisiana seceded.  Since most engravers lived in the North and the mint already had a bunch of half-dollars partially stamped, they simply made a new die for the reverse and used the coins on hand to show what the finished product might look like.  In 1879, a man got a hold of the Confederate die and re-stamped 500 Union 1861 half-dollars to make replicas, which are worth thousands today.  There's also been many other replicas made since then out of high-grade metals, but the two we found are just what I thought from the beginning: cheap copies that you can get for around three bucks at historical sites.

I gotta tell ya, though, you should've seen the look on my husband's face when I got home that night and said, "Hold out your hand..."