Quote Quoting freegirl
View Post
My question involves criminal law for the state of: California

So lately I've been wanting one of those necklaces that consists of nothing but a coin but first you have to put the hole in the coin, and since defacing money is illegal would this count and could you get charged with something if a police officer saw you wearing it?
Your premise that it is illegal to deface coins is wrong. As the U.S. Treasury, Department of the Mint (which is the agency that makes U.S. coins) explains in a FAQ page:

Section 331 of Title 18 of the United States code provides criminal penalties for anyone who “fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the Mints of the United States.” This statute means that you may be violating the law if you change the appearance of the coin and fraudulently represent it to be other than the altered coin that it is. As a matter of policy, the U.S. Mint does not promote coloring, plating or altering U.S. coinage: however, there are no sanctions against such activity absent fraudulent intent.

So unless you are defacing or altering the coins to commit some kind of fraud, like for example trying to the coin appear as one worth more than it really is, the alteration does not vioalte federal law. So if you want to take some pennies, drill a hole in them and string them together as a necklace, go for it. That is not illegal and no cop is going to arrest you for wearing the necklace.

I would recommend you not attempt drilling the holes at a police station for the reasons cdwjava points out. And it would be totally pointless anyway.


Quote Quoting Highwayman
View Post
I don't know why anyone here entertains this nonsense. If this person is ignored consistently they will go away.
Because the question about whether it is illegal to make jewlery out of coins is actually a legitimate legal question. If you think it is nonsense, just don't post at all. Trolls like to see people get upset with their posts; your complaints that what they post is “nonsense” is what feeds trolls. That’s what trolls like to see. If all they get is a real answer to the actual legal question they ask then they’ll go away if real legal answers are not what they are looking for. On the other hand, if this person really wants to learn a little about the law, well, isn’t that what these boards are for? In any event, I’m not going to stop providing legal information in posts that raise legitimate legal issues, regardless of what you may think about the worth of them.