This sounds like a starter set of a "world by date" collection

[Figleaf]

Enough coins to make you flip
December 20, 2008, Dan Tracy | Sentinel Staff Writer

Want to buy some money? The Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority is having a sale.

The authority has 1,200 pounds of coins -- 66 bags in all -- from all over the world. Venezuelan bolivares. Malaysian ringgits. Salvadoran colons. Norwegian kroner. Name the country, and it's probably represented.

There's also a bunch of filthy and abused American coins and a healthy smattering of tokens from places like Chuck E. Cheese.

All were tossed by motorists into baskets along the authority's 100 miles of toll roads. And they were all rejected by sorting machines that accept only quarters, dimes, nickels or pennies that are in good, relatively clean shape.

Now, the authority is having an end-of-the-year sale.

Interested buyers can take a look at the booty Tuesday from 10 to 11 a.m. at authority headquarters, 4974 ORL Tower Road, just off State Road 408. Sealed bids must be turned in no later than Dec. 29.

If you win, you must haul it away yourself.

And what is it all worth? Not much, according to coin experts.

"World junk" is the description offered by Matthew Kleinsteuber, a numismatist at Numismatic Financial Corp. in Winter Springs.

Added Bill Burke, manager of Eur-Am Coin in Orlando: "Not worth my time."

The dirty American coins can be cleaned up and cashed in, or spent. But the foreign coins, Kleinsteuber said, are probably most valuable if melted down for their silver content. Alternatively, he said, you might find someone willing to buy them at 75 percent of face value.

But what about the possibility that some exotic coin worth lots of money might be hiding in there?

"You're better off betting on the lottery," Kleinsteuber said.

Source: Orlando sentinel

[chrisild]

But the foreign coins, Kleinsteuber said, are probably most valuable if melted down for their silver content.

How often do they empty those baskets in Florida? Every 50 or 100 years?

But selling/auctioning them is still a nice idea. I would have split the "booty" up and sold several lots separately - but it will take less time and effort to just give all those coins to one buyer. Won't be me though ...

Christian

[BC Numismatics]

I'm very surprised that there is no collaboration between the traffic authorities & the coin dealers,especially in America.

If there was,it would make the traffic authorities' jobs a lot easier,& it would be doing the numismatic trade some favours.

Aidan.