Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Coins on Headstones and Monuments

Interesting bit of trivia regarding these little donations for the deceased.
Supposedly it’s a carry over from Ancient Rome, where the customs was to put coins in the mouths of dead soldiers so they would have money to pay the ferryman on the River Styx.
I don’t usually do it at headstones. I seldom visit a cemetery. For me it’s just an empty hole in the ground. The people I care about are with Christ and their Father above, and the memories and love of them resides in my heart.
Anyway though, With the beginning of warmer weather, I’m thinking about making a day trip to Gettysburg because I think it’s helpful to see the terrain minus the leaves and vegetation of full summer.
I do wish to hell they would reopen Little Round Top. It kinda ridiculous to close that whole area for close to two years. I understand upkeep and erosion control, but seriously? GMAFB.🤬
Studying the Devils Den and Houcks Ridge area, and the terrain around Willoboughy Run area too, helps one to understand how and why the units moved as they did, and how the battle developed.
Boots on the ground, as the saying goes!
But I always leave a penny at Old Pete’s monument and the Lee Virginia monument , The statue of WS Hancock on Cemetery Hill and I leave a nickel on the First Army Corps monument because that was my unit when I was a soldier.
The custom is you leave a penny as a tribute, showing your respect. A nickel denotes you served in the same unit as the deceased, a dime means you served together with the man, and a quarter means you were there when the soldier actually died.
Supposedly it’s picked up after a time, and used for upkeep of the grounds.
Arlington donates it for homeless veterans.
Reon

Good to know. Thanks

In the Forward Air Control and fighter pilot fraternity, it is the custom to "throw a nickel on the grass" of a fellow's grave.

The final reunion of FACs is set for later this year. Bunch of septuagenarian drunks celebrating what is now an extinct form of aerial warfare. I predict that the FAC monument will be shiny with nickels at the end.

Never knew that, Coins started showing up at our cemetery just a few years ago. When I retired, I took over, overseeing our local cemetery. Volunteer position, where I mark off graves for the gravedigger, and for setting monuments. I also write the checks for mowing and other upkeep. All upkeep is funded by donations. miles

Those septuagenarian drunks sure as heck eared that right! Thank God for all our fighting men and ladies. Even the old drunk ones😀!
While we’re on the subject of aerial warfare, what’s your take on big carriers?
I’ve read a couple of articles saying that they’re outdated by the newer surface to surface missiles, and should be replaced with little fleets of escort size carriers.
I was just a ground pounder, not even that, a mechanic for ground pounders.😀

“Nickle on the grass
save a fighter pilot’s ass…”

I live in The Mississippi Delta. The Blues Trail markers are all over the state as well as old blues men gravesite. The legendary Robert Johnson has 3 graves near Greenwood Mississippi. Yes, that’s not a misprint. All at black churches and the pastors of these churches milk all the tourism dollars they can from this notariety. I’ve visited lots of them and you not only find coins, both foreign and domestic, but other stuff also. I’ve found whiskey, gin, vodka and MD20/20 bottles, worn out and new harmonicas, notes and candles. My BIL was a pastor near one of the Robert Johnson gravesites. A farmer in his church was waved down by a chauffeur of a long black limousine asking directions to the grave. The back window rolled down and Mick Jagger of Rolling Stones fame, leaned out with a few questions too.

Several years ago, I visited the campus of Washington & Lee University in Virginia on my way to a WBTS reenactment. In the lower level of the chapel is the tomb of Confederate General Robert Edward Lee. Just outside of the chapel on the grounds is the gravesite of his most famous horse, Traveler, which died a few years after the general. There were coins and a few military buttons left on the modest flat granite stone in tribute. I have been told the stone has since been replaced with one that bears no mention of this horse's connection to General Lee. The hatred of the Leftists is unbounded as well as their ignorance.

There is a small Confederate burial site alongside the Natchez Trace. One of the saddest places I ever saw. Several coins on the headstones.