kiffie

Today, my mom and I finally moved the large Scott Allwave I'd inherited from my grandmother out of the garage and into my room.

While we were cleaning the radio off in preparation for the final hike up the steps to our house, I spotted two pennies sticking out between one of the hinges. Evidently, my great-grandfather (who bought the radio way back in the twenties) had run into a bit of trouble making one hinge meet up properly, and so had jammed two pennies inside to make it even. (This ran right in line with the large hole he'd gouged in one side, in order to make room for the plug to the giant, 20ft+ antenna he'd added on -- set up in his backyard, of course.)

Being a curious Kiff, I wondered what year the pennies were. They had to be old -- the radio was older than my father by twenty years, at least! So I sent my mom off for a screwdriver while I found two new, shield-back pennies to replace the ones I planned to remove.

Two carefully-removed screws and two replacement pennies later, I had my prizes: a wheat-back from somewhere in the 20's (the last digit had been sitting under the hinge and had been worn away) and a 1926 Canadian penny. The latter had been on the bottom, and pressure and time had actually pressed King George's face into the wood. Aside from the wear-spot on the wheat-back, both looked to have been new when they were enlisted into their duty as structural support. I felt a little better about replacing them with the two new shield-backs. Maybe, in 80 years, someone will be just as excited about finding those shiny, new pennies as I was in finding these.