The Gold Coins Story

1975

A True Story

Written 10/2011* 1,262 Words*

By Howard Yasgar

It was March of 1975, and I was on Wabash Avenue in Detroit Michigan, I was rummaging through my good friend Barney Kaplan’s warehouse.

Barney Kaplan was the owner of BKS Surplus, and he was one of my best parts suppliers.

Barny’s main business was buying excess merchandise from the Detroit auto manufacturers as well as from

A few Detroit area scrap dealers.

Every year, I made several trips from Miami, just to look for any new material that Barney may have purchased.

Fortunately for me, on this trip in 1975, Barney had done some serious house cleaning, and there were several new areas in his warehouse for me to investigate.

In one of the back rooms, sitting against the far wall, was a metal drum that had no top on it, it just had a piece of corrugated cardboard lying on it.

Naturally, I was curious, and I had to remove the cardboard to look at what was in the barrel, and boy was surprised.

The barrel was half filled with what looked to me like gold coins.

I immediately picked up a handful for a closer look.

Well, it turns out they weren’t real gold coins, but they sure looked like they were.

The coins were about the size of a U.S. quarter, and they even had an edge on them just like a real U.S. quarter has.

As I studied the coins closer, I saw that each coin had the outline of a different state of the United States, and on the reverse side of the coin it had a bit of information about the state.

Upon closer scrutiny, the coins appeared to be brass and then electroplated to give them a gold appearance.

I was so excited, I immediately ran up to the front office with a handful of coins to show Barney.

Barney casually said, “I see you found my treasure”.

Barney went on to tell me that several years ago, Shell Oil Company was going to run a promotion giving away

the coins.

People could buy Shell gasoline and then receive a different state coin each time until they had collected all 48 states.

However, Barney said that Shell Oil Company gave up on the promotion before it even started, and they sold the coins to a scrap yard, and that’s when Barney bought them by the pound.

Barney said that wherever he went, if he saw any young kids, he would give each kid a couple of coins, Barney said all the kids loved them.

Barney also said that whenever he was traveling, he would always put some coins in the coin returns on the pay phones in the airport. Then he would sit down and watch the faces of the people as they put their finger in the coin return and found the gold coins, He said, boy were they surprised.

Barney said, “Take some of the coins back to Miami with you”, you will have a ton of fun with them.

So, I found a large coffee can and I filled it up with the fake gold coins.

When I was back in Miami, I dumped the coins on the kitchen table, and I sat down along with both my kids.

We were trying to make complete sets of 48 states.

The following week my partner and I were going on a sales trip to San Jose, Costa Rica, so I put some of the coins in my suitcase.

That evening we checked into the San Jose hotel and we were given a room that was located right above the swimming pool.

I couldn’t resist it, so I threw a half dozen Barney’s coins into the pool.

In the morning, we awoke to the noise of the hotel staff, all of them were diving in the pool to get the coins.

I watched as they were all trying to figure out what the coins were, and where they came from, and if they were real gold.

Barney’s coins had created quite a commotion.

I knew then that I had to be more responsible with what I did with the coins, because people thought the coins were real gold.

That evening, when we went out for supper, our cab driver was searching his pockets for money for the parking meter.

I asked him what he was looking for and he said he needed a Costa Rican 50 Centavo coin.

I showed him Barney’s gold coin, and he couldn’t believe it, but the coin fit in the San Jose parking meter perfectly.

I gave the rest of the coins I had with me to the cab driver, and boy was happy.

The following month, my partner and I were making sales calls in Mexico.

As we drove by the port, we saw there was a crowd of tourists standing on a cruise ships railing, throwing coins in the water, and the Mexican Kids were diving for them.

Against my better judgement, I threw a hand full of Barney’s coins into the water.

Right away the Mexican kids forgot all about the tourists, and they went diving after Barney’s coins.

I could see that I had had again created quite a commotion, so my partner and I quickly left before anyone found out that the coins weren’t really gold.

I vowed to never take Barney’s coins with me anywhere again; they just caused too much trouble.

So, it was many months later when I was on vacation with my family, and we were in Port Au Prince Haiti.

One afternoon, we were in a taxi driving up to the top of a mountain.

At the mountain top, there were several Haitian vendors, selling local made trinkets, so we stopped to buy a necklace that my daughter wanted.

I was pretty sure I no longer had any of Barney’s coins with me. But when I reached in my pocket for some change, I was very surprised as one of Barney’s coins appeared mixed in with all the U.S. Coins in my pocket.

Once the Haitian vendor saw the gold coin in my hand, he no longer wanted any U.S. money from us, he just wanted Barney’s gold coin, and he quickly grabbed it out of my hand.

As our cab started down the mountain side, I looked back as the Haitian vendor was wiggling Barney’s coin in between his teeth.

The next thing I heard was a loud bang, as Barneys gold coin bounced off our Taxi cabs rear window.

After that episode, I stopped giving out any of Barney’s coins, but I always keep a few coins in my office to remind me of Barney, and all the fun that he and I had with them.

My friend Barney passed away in 2014, at 96 years of age.

At his funeral his sons assured me that they had made sure Barney had some of the coins in his pocket.