Kerry
Senior Member
Well I couldn't decide what topic this might go under - it is more for the coin collector than MDer, but anyway, I wanted to share a tidbit I learned from my brother-in-law, who is an insurance appraiser. Apparently his job has taken him into some pretty old structures, and when he learned my husband and I were gutting our farmhouse, he gave us a call.
Our house had to be remodeled before we could move in, and one job was tearing out the old plaster and lathe walls. This exposed the original window frames - which was pretty interesting in itself as we discovered the old iron weights that hung on either side of the sash. Getting back to my BIL's call--- he said before we drywall be sure to check the framing around the old windows. Seems it was commonplace for builders to use pennies to shim the windows. As exciting as the idea was, we never found any. But I thought I might pass this along to you coin collecters.
Our house had to be remodeled before we could move in, and one job was tearing out the old plaster and lathe walls. This exposed the original window frames - which was pretty interesting in itself as we discovered the old iron weights that hung on either side of the sash. Getting back to my BIL's call--- he said before we drywall be sure to check the framing around the old windows. Seems it was commonplace for builders to use pennies to shim the windows. As exciting as the idea was, we never found any. But I thought I might pass this along to you coin collecters.
That's not dangerous at all. 
Steve
