Just pulled the heater core out of my crusty '56 Vette, been in a barn since '74 until I got it roadworthy this year. Don't know how long this was laying there, never noticed it before, maybe came out of the heater. Hmm, it's a wheat penny, cool. Flip it over... It's an omen! I'm supposed to dump money into this thing! So far it's working.
Same year. Maybe put in during assembly? What if the assembler put a new penny there for every 'vette he built and you are the first to find one?
I believe it was Benjamin Franklin that said"A penny saved is a penny earned". Any more,it`s"A penny saved is a penny taxed". Good luck.Have fun.Be safe. Leo
i heard of plumbers doing that, a friend says he has pulled old porcelain pedestal sinks and found pennies dated 1901 1905... from when the house was supposedly built.
There's NO "pennies" minted in the US, never was. If you look, it says "cent" on it. Just like the quarter, says...QUARTER. The nickle says...NICKLE. The dime says...DIME. And the fifty "cent" piece, says...HALF DOLLAR. Never heard anyone say "fifty penny" piece..!? Mike
That's too cool! I might be tempted to laminate it in plastic along with a small note explaining its existence and discovery. I can picture a factory assembly guy putting it there, with a little gleam in his eye, knowing he left a cool gift and conversation piece for someone in the future. Kind of reminds me of the Warner Brothers cartoon with Fred J. Muggs, the singing frog. If you get a chance, check it out.
I had to open up the very solid rocker box in my 57 Ford to fix a brace. Inside was a 1957 wheat penny. There was no way it fell in there. It had to have been put there when the rocker box was welded together.
Leave that penny with the car Paul. A hidden 56 penny in a 56 Corvette. And remember you don't own that car..........you are just a caretaker of it [for a period in it's history]
Yep ,I would put it back to . Maybe a little note folded up under it with your story . Karma Baby ...if I took it out the heater wouldn't work !
OK I'll put it back. Maybe get another one to make a knob out of, and tell the story about putting it back when someone notices. What's one more rattle..
The superstitious car owners would hide a new penny in their cars when they bought them. So it could be the original owner stuck that '56 penny somewhere in a defroster vent, or duct for luck. My old Austin gasser was 100% original when I bought it, and was shipped to Canada when purchased new. When I tore it apart to build, I found two brand new Canadian pennies dated the same year as the car. I kept them and epoxied them on control knobs for headlights, and choke. So they're with the car for as long as I own it anyway.
I once pulled a penny out of a 1966 top loader 4 speed transmission case! Someone had used it to plug one of the holes in the case by driving it in with a pin or something. Worked as the thing never leaked. Still have it somewhere.
Had a friend who re-built old car fuel pumps told me he's taken a bunch of them out of the old diaphrams. Don't know if they stuck them under or over them as a spacer or something? Lippy
Ah, but Mike, the phrase predates the cent. The first use of the phrase "A penny spar'd is twice got." appeared in print in 1633-before Franklin, while the first US cent wasn't minted until 1997. At the end of the day, language is about conveying meaning. Do you understand what someone means when they call something a penny? Enough said.
Don't know your age, but, in our day a penny was a penny. We had penny candy. We could get things for "pennies on the dollar". We were told to "save our pennies if we wanted something". We were asked, "Penny for your thoughts?"...Had a girlfriend named Penny... A penny is a british coin.
Knew a couple guys that worked the nite shift at the ford assy plant in atlanta and they used to put a marble in the rocker panel on the early assy line.
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