Now for another take on punched coins--sometimes they were punched and strung
up for safe transport. A coin collecting friend points out that there is a
category among his people for pierced coins with examples going back to Roman
times. But like Lucy Wayne, I usually associate them with Af-Am sites in the
Southeast, where they were clearly  used as good luck charms. In "Folk
Beliefs of the Southern American Negro" Newbell Niles Puckett not only
discusses them, but illustrates someone wearing one....  Carl Steen