Saturday, September 01, 2007

Doc Gave Me Food For Thought

Something Doc said, made me mull something else over.

I've heard a lot of good advice in my time. Such as "Go with God and don't take any wooden nickels." Or "Watch that last step" as well as "Bring Cash".

Just where are these wooden nickels that I've always heard about? How convincing could a wooden nickel actually be? It's wood, after all and from a tactile standpoint, it feels nothing like metal. All parking meters and vending machines are set not to accept something as light as the wood would be.

Not to mention that in this day and age, if it is piece of wood that looks convincingly just like a nickel, I'm sure that I could get more than a nickel for it.

They must exist in the same theoretical plane as the turnip trucks. At any rate, click the purple for a worthy, sudsy post and Doc? "Up your leg"...





...I think.

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6 Comments:

Blogger deadspot said...

Actually, I have a wooden nickel stashed in a box of old junk in the basement. It's a wooden disk about an inch or so in diameter, maybe a little bigger, stamped with... um... something. I haven't looked at it in years, but I think it had the head from the old buffalo nickels on one side and text on the other.

Apparently businesses would give them out as way to encourage repeat customers. You could spend the wooden nickel at the business in lieu of actual cash.

Tue Sep 04, 07:15:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Writeprocrastinator said...

Spot,

Wow, so they were the precursors to coupons?

Tue Sep 04, 08:10:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Coaster Punchman said...

I too have known the joys of the wooden nickel. There used to be a bar in Minneapolis called "Tracy's Saloon" or something where they gave out wooden nickels as you were leaving and you got to use them for a free beer on your next visit or some dumb thing like that.

Ok, fascinating comment, I realize....

Tue Sep 04, 08:12:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Writeprocrastinator said...

Coaster,

No, it is really interesting to me. Until Spot and you had said anything, I thought this was just an absurdism and I know that the saying goes back, because I remember it from old Warner Brothers cartoons and films.

Tue Sep 04, 08:43:00 PM PDT  
Blogger deadspot said...

Yeah, I think they were sort of like coupons that the place could circulate over and over again, or a customer reward plan like CP mentioned. They were before my time. If I remember correctly, the one in my basement came from a box of my uncle's old stuff from when he was a spotty high school kid in a dinky town in central Illinois.

OK, he may not have been spotty, but it seems like a safe bet.



Hey! I just realized that I have a much more recent wooden nickel. I got one for a free drink during happy hour at the MacCallum House in Mendocino when I checked in. I never got a chance to use it, so I'm sure it's floating around somewhere at home. I had totally forgotten about it, but I remember thinking how cool it was that they were reviving the custom.

Wed Sep 05, 06:55:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Writeprocrastinator said...

"Mendicino?"

Jeez, they even have them in California? I wonder if I'll see Bigfoot before I see one.

Wed Sep 05, 08:57:00 PM PDT  

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