Funny story (is this the right forum?) about how my friend’s father would save money to trade in his car each year for a brand-new model. It’s described in his post (attached).
Its the right forum as long as you mention a car or a truck. That’s a new one. Can’t imagine taking that smelly mess to the bank though. They aren’t even happy getting clean coins. Now though I would guess the gas would be worth a lot more than the change and don’t imagine the tank would stay in the truck very long after being publicised in the paper. They’d just cut the tank out along with the cat.
Good gravy, imagine doing that with your change today, crossing either border, and getting randomly selected for “additional screening” by Homeland Security! Hope you packed a lunch! (And dinner…)
If that tank were totally filled with coins would the cash total enough to buy a used Yugo these days? A 2 gallon pickle jar filled with pocket change weighed more than 75 pounds but only totaled $120.
Kinda like a friend who wanted an old big water cooler jug to put pennies in,asked him how He planned to move it after it was full of pennies,finally found him one at a dump dont know if He used it or not
Just dont think the gas tank idea is a good one,looks likke there would be trace contaminants on the coins-Kevin
I’ll go a little off topic . . .
It would be a lot harder to remove the tank on a new truck
Yeah we’ve got one of those plastic pickle jars for coins and its just about full again. Heavy as heck and the banks don’t like to spend their time on it. Maybe a slow day. Last time it was filled though it had over $400 in it so maybe.
@Rod Knox: Well then they must have all been pennies. There’s 146 pennies in a pound (3.1 g each). That’s $1.46/pound. Dimes and quarters are around the same value/weight (belying their shared sliver heritage) and around $18/lb. Nickles are somewhere in-between.
At $1.60/#, that’s not too many things other than pennies!
In '55 cars had mechanical fuel pumps, but in today’s world he’d kill pumps quickly by subjecting them to the challenge of having to try to draw fuel through a pile of pennies. In '55 he probably had problems with fuel line freezeup too, as the pump drawing fuel through a pile of change would probably create very low pressure in the fuel line. Might even cause a premature diaphragm failure in the mechanical pump.
Interesting article however. People do strange things.
I’m reminded of the rocker Ronnie Hawkins who went to a Rolls Royce dealership in jeans and leather jacket with a shopping bag full of bills to buy a car. The salesman would not even talk to him and mumbled he could not afford a Rolls. He then asked for the sales manager and bought the Rolls on the floor MINUS the commission the salesman would have received.
This has been an exceptional summer for grain production and many happy farmers were buying new machinery and paying cash.
@Docnick
I like your story
It could easily have been the other way around, also
A well dressed man looking to buy a car might have lousy credit and almost no money to his name
Yep, people judge other people all the time by the way the look, dress, the car they drive, or the house they live in. No consistency in the amount of money they have at all. People that have money know that. Always interesting that a $10 an hour clerk may judge a $100 an hour professional as having no money because of leisure clothing. If it wasn’t for my wife, I’d be wearing jeans with holes in them everywhere.
Absolutely. For most of my working life I wore suits & ties, and I always got treated with respect. When I’d walk into the same establishments in jeans & sneakers with a T-shirt, the treatment was entirely different. And I might add that the same server often didn’t even recognize me. Now that I’m retired I’ve grown a full gray beard, trimmed, and the way I’m treated is again different… people are instantly nicer to me. I call It the “Santa effect”. The gray beard seems to relax them.
After a days work, walk in many establishments in this area,with some mud on you,you would be suprised how often you get snubbed (as if to say"that Joker has to work for a living,cant have any money or be very smart")-Kevin
I don’t think most people in most establishments in my area really think about it. I think they just need to be visually impressed to notice a person. In car dealerships, they try to size everyone up. They don’t want to be stuck with a dreamer when a real customer walks in. I’d probably be the same way.
I consider it to be like walking into a club; the ladies would be far more likely to notice Tom Selleck (in his younger days) than they would me.
The same, at their own loss.
Thanks. But I’d still rather look like Tom Selleck…
Quite a few years ago, I read an article by an affluent woman. She was preparing for a household party, and realized she needed some minor clothing items, so she bopped down to her usual boutique. Wearing jeans and her hair in some sort of pony tail. The clerks would not even talk to her.
This made her angry enough she went home and put on good clothes, and returned with no way to pay but a $100 bill. They had to run all over the place to get change. She said they did recognize her, and she could see them sweating when they realized what they had done.
I worked for some years with divorced fathers, including counseling and suicide counseling. I was a factory technician, but when I had to go to the court house, or accompany a man to child support recovery, I’d put on a professional quality business suit. Did it make a difference? Of course!
When I was in my late 40s, on several visits into KFC I was given a senior citizen’s discount without asking. There wasn’t THAT much gray in the hair and beard I thought.
Now in my early 60s, I picked up a six-pack of beer a few weeks ago and got held up for 10 minutes while the store rounded up a manager override to “make sure that I was at least 40 years of age”.
Just a couple of years before that I was carded while buying beer leading a guy in line behind me to exclaim, “You have got to be (expletive) me!”.
My response was that I didn’t know whether to be upset or flattered… 
Talk about perceptions.
@ok4450
I once questioned the clerk at a local pharmacy why I was being carded for my case of beer
I told him “We both know I’m way past 21”
He said “Yeah, I can see that. But I’m supposed to card anyone that looks like they might be under 40.”
I believe I was 41 at the time.
I’m quite certain he would have said something different to a young lady he was carding
A 25 year old lady isn’t going to be too flattered to hear that she “appears to be under 40.”
Somehow, I don’t think she would view it as a compliment
LOL . . . ?