News You Can Bruise for 2007 March 18 (entry 0)

(3) Sun Mar 18 2007 09:06 I have some... inadvertent discoveries!: The Indian 50 paise coin is attracted to a magnet. I don't know of any other money that does that.

Comments:

Posted by Kevan at Sun Mar 18 2007 10:21

British 1p and 2p coins are, if you've got any left in your pockets. Which was quite an alarming discovery for me; they changed the composition of them ten or so years ago, which post-dates all my childhood universe-establishing magnet work.

Posted by Seth Schoen at Sun Mar 18 2007 14:42

(gets out bags of foreign coins)

Canada: .05, .10, .25, .50, $1 (loonie), $2 (twonie); some pennies depending on year

Brazil: every denomination, both families (didn't have any .01 or R$1 of either family to test, but I'm pretty sure)

Euro: .01, .02, .05, EUR 1, EUR 2

Sweden: SEK 5

Posted by Seth Schoen at Sun Mar 18 2007 14:47

I should also note that I tested only a few denominations of Bulgarian, Swedish, Swiss, and Thai coins, so you should not assume that other denominations are not attracted to magnets. (None of the Bulgarian, Swiss, or Thai coins I tried were.)