The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 51, December 16, 2007, Article 27

NEW HAMPSHIRE TOWN CASHES IN TWENTY YEARS WORTH OF WISHING WELL COINS

[An article from Portsmouth, NH tells how a twenty-year
hoard of coins was recently cashed in.  Too bad melting's
illegal - the pre-1982 cents might have generated more than
face value for the town.  -Editor]

On Saturday, the Prescott Park Board of Trustees, with the
help of Boy Scout Troop 181 of Rye, packed up and transferred
a stockpile of pennies, nickels, quarters and dimes that had
been thrown into the four fountains in the riverside park with
the hope a wish might come true.

Michael Warhurst, the superintendent of Prescott Park, said
he and the staff clean out the change from the fountains on
a regular basis and had been storing them in five-gallon buckets
for years. Almost entirely made up of pennies, it's estimated
this chunk of change had been collecting for more than two
decades.

Brad Lown, one of the trustees that oversees a number of city
trust funds, said he and a fellow board member discovered the
coins in a park storage facility.

'We were just looking down here and saw the coins and thought
they ought to be brought to a bank,' he said.

The Prescott Park staff did a rough count and estimate the
change is worth about $2,400.

The money will be deposited into a fund dedicated to the care
of the Hovey Fountain, known for its statue. Warhurst said
besides regular maintenance, the fountain needs some repairs.

While the park staff had the dirty job of collecting the
coins, scouts Joe and Sam Allen, Chris and Camden Latimer,
and volunteers Peter and Abigail Lown and Grace Gittell
scooped four wheelbarrows' worth of dusty pennies into
plastic bank bags for easier transport.

After the bags were loaded into Brad Lown and troop leader
Jeff Latimer's cars, the kids carried the bags into Citizens
Bank, which had agreed to change in the money for the
organization.

To read the complete article, see:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071209/NEWS/71209
0351

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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