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Lynnie

SoWal Insider
Apr 18, 2007
8,151
434
SoBuc
Which do you prefer? Incidentally, did anyone ever place a penny on a rail just before the train chugged through? Pretty groovy results.
 

scooterbug44

SoWal Expert
May 8, 2007
16,706
3,339
Sowal
Don't think I've played either.

We tried the penny thing - rail vibrated and the damn thing fell off before the train could skoosh it!
 

Lynnie

SoWal Insider
Apr 18, 2007
8,151
434
SoBuc
I still have an oblong, shiny piece of copper, too. Funny, I can't remember why we were hangin' out by the rail road tracks, but I guess that's what kids do. I do remember being scared because my big brothers told me if you were too close to the train when it went by, it was like a vacuum that would suck you under! Yowsa!

And, I remember stealing their sacks of marbles to trade.
 

Desso

Beach Lover
Feb 8, 2008
175
70
I went to Lucille Moore Elementary in Panama City and we had a train track right by the school. Under threat of a paddling from the principal to stay away from it, we would put whole rolls of pennies and nickels on the tracks. Crazy results and valuable too. We would sell them, depending on the squashed configuration, for many times the worth of the coins. A flattened silver dollar (not really, but the dollar coin) could bring five bucks. Where any 8-10 year old kid got five dollars in the mid-70's is beyond me. But we made some decent money. Of course you had to wait for the train to get close before you put out the coins or the bigger kids would come through and take it. We always taped them done so they wouldn't vibrate off. Risky all the way around. Unfortunately, railroad tracks were kid magnets in those days. And I do still have my elementary school marble collection. We played for keeps at school (also a reason to be paddled) and I've got quite a collection. A guy at a mineral and gem show offered me $400 for the whole bag a few years ago. I don't know if they make these kind any more, but some of them are real works of art. I declined, the are invaluable to me.
 

Desso

Beach Lover
Feb 8, 2008
175
70
We also sold lava (mineral oil, water, food coloring), but that operation was shut down pretty quickly by disgruntled customers.
 

Lynnie

SoWal Insider
Apr 18, 2007
8,151
434
SoBuc
Never did the penny thing, although I did collect them, arrange them by year, and count them.

When I was a kid I liked to arrange marbles on the basis of numerical patterns and by color.

Is that playin' marbles? Or plain OCD?
:lol:


:lolabove: Maybe a tad OCD, but I arranged by color and pattern, too. All different brown paper sacks.
 
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