During the last few weeks I have been doing some business traveling. One of my trips was to the west coast on a flight that required a transfer of planes at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. DFW is an interesting airport, very spread apart, and travelers are dependent on the Skylink unmanned train system to go between the five terminals.
On the trip to and from the west coast, I was able to spend a few dollars for incidentals in order to collect the change to see what I could find. While airports are not necessarily the best place to go change hunting, there is always the possibility that something may be found.
Unfortunately, in two trips I did not find anything interesting from my airport hunts and my west coast spending. In fact, lack of interesting finds is in itself an interesting story because I found more coins with “P” or no mintmarks than with “D” or older “S” mintmark coins.
During this trip not only did I leave an item that I did not think would pass through the TSA checkpoint but I also forgot a necessity. Rather than buying it from the hotel shop, I ventured out to a local big box store to see what I can find in change. Aside from the sticker shock of having to pay 10-cents for a paper bag to carry my purchase out of the store, but the change returned had nothing interesting. The only “D” mint coins I found was a dime and two Memorial reverse Lincoln cents.
Before returning home, I put my change in a zippy bag that was in a side pocket of my carry bag. The bag contained more than $3 in change with only six coins with a “D” mintmark—no early “S” mintmarks or coins older than 1991.
On the way out of the airport to retrieve my car, I stopped at an airport shop for a bottle of water. Aside from being shocked at the $2.50 price, of the two quarters I received in change one was dated 1998-D.
At least the trip was more successful than my change hunting efforts.