Happy Christmas everyone. I hope you have a wonderful day and Santa brings you everything you wished for.
In a few days I’ll be in Oz, so stay tuned for the usual travelogue 🙂
Category: Miscellaneous
Treasure!
I went to the bank earlier, and walked out with a $1 coin. This isn’t much news to the Australians, but here in the US we’re still cursed with paper $1 bills.
The coins do exist though, and are mostly ignored by the public. I bought one because I collect them….
Yes this is another post about one of my strange collections!
Back in 1999 the US Mint started releasing a series of 50 quarters to commemorate every state. Five were released every year, and apparently they became the most collected coins in US history, with about half of all Americans (!) collecting a set. And at least one Australian…
I didn’t go out of my way to collect them, since they were (and still are) extremely common. I just kept one of each as I got them in change, putting them into the little book I had purchased.
The set was followed by 6 ‘district and territory’ quarters and now we’re in the middle of a series of 60 (or more!) ‘America The Beautiful’ quarters featuring state parks and other notable natural attractions within the US. Compared to the state quarters both of these follow up sets seem much rarer and I haven’t made any effort to collect either.
The Presidential Dollar series began in 2007 and was intended to promote acceptance amongst the population of a $1 coin. Five new coins were to be released a year but the coins were a failure and after 5 years circulation ended. The coins are still made, but for the collectors market only.
In theory I could fill that book just with coins if receive in change or at the bank. They are difficult to find these days though, so I doubt I will.
The last US coin book I have is this:
I’m not sure why or when I got this book, but I have made an attempt to fill it:
This is not a collection I put any effort into!
In addition to these I have a nearly complete set of Australian 20c, 50c, $1 and $2 coins. If only someone made little collecting books as nice as the ones I have for US coins.
I could probably do a dozen or more posts about other weird collections I have. They’ll have to wait for next Christmas 🙂
A Piece Of Christmas Magic
Most of you know how much I like these things:
These two were purchased last week at the dollar store. Had I not already sent/wrapped the Christmas gifts you may have received one too! I quickly set them up and found they weren’t the most well-constructed of kits:
They are made of porous cardboard with the edges dipped into food colouring (or in the case of the snowman, not dipped). A small packet of liquid is included, which is poured into the reservoir at the bottom.
It doesn’t take long for the liquid to move up the cardboard until it reaches the tips, where crystals begin to form. If the crystallization occurs where the cardboard contains food colouring, the crystals themselves are coloured as well.
So what’s happening? Well it’s actually quite complex. The solution contains water and a mix of alkaline and ammonium salts. Since it is a liquid, capillary action causes it to move into the cardboard. Once the water evaporates (which is most likely at the edges) the remaining salts form crystals. The process is quite quick (less than 6 hours) and once completed the crystals are fairly rigid and the ‘tree’ can survive for years if protected.
We actually have a few (better) ones in our curio cabinet, including a panorama of Mt Fuji that we must have had for a decade now! I sent many of you trees like this a few years ago. I wonder how many of you still have them?
There are many good explanations of the science behind such trees online (this is a good one), and you can even find instructions on how to make your own. If I taught chemistry instead of physics, I think I’d certainly work this into one of the lab experiments!