Why is a roll of quarters recommonded to be carriered in the BOB.?

Phone calls, laundry, candy.

sounds to me like who ever has the quarters plan to stay in town?

Keep in mind that quarters would also be very useful for paying the fares on toll-roads. And if you've got a choice between a toll-road and a free road to get to your bug-out destination, the toll-road may be your best bet due to less congestion and higher speed.

Both of my vehicle kits have a roll of quarters and an envelope with several new condition $1bills. Phone calls are a possibility (but payphones seem to be headed to extinction).

But my number one reason is use in vending machines. There are times and places that the only access to food and beverage is via a large metal machine. Best to be prepared with quarters and fresh dollar bills to feed this beast.

TR

Along with getting stuff from vending machines how about as an expedient brass knuckles/weighted fist? It wouldn't arouse as much suspicion as a knife/gun/cricket bat.

-Blast

For a wilderness survival kit, I think much more than a few quarters and maybe a couple fives is over kill. If I have to hike out to a road, and get picked up thumbing, I want pay for some gas, but I'm just odd like that.

For a BOB, money is critical. Simply put, any one planning on running off and playing Daniel Boone/Davy Crockett/Robinson Crusoe in the unmapped wilds is deluding themselves. (Which is very different from living La Vida Amish.) There aren't too many place in CONUS were you aren't within 10 miles of settled areas that aren't desert, and even then odds are probably better than even you'll find a road by walking five miles in any one direction.

You will need money. Access to accounts in another town, stocks and bonds, credit cards, those might not be worth much. But cash will be excepted, even if prices are inflated, in anything but the very worst case senarios. Even if you end up in a tent city, it is better than being homeless. And if you want anything more than handouts, you'll need to pay for it, one way or another. Life is too short and hands will be to available for grunt labor to be traded for very much, unless you can demonstrate in about two minutes that you are worth more than that, and goats and chickens just aren't that easy to include in BOB. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Besides, most bug outs are only for the short term. It is like a business trip gone haywire. "A dollar per mile, in cash and coin" was a peice of advice given to me a very long time ago, and it's never failed me, even when my first car blew the fuel pump two hundred miles from home on what should have been a long day trip. Got towed, new parts put in, spent the night in a cheap hotel with the contents of the bag I keep in my car. It wasn't exciting, just annoying. With proper planning that is all any emergency should be.

Here in California, some of the State campgrounds have quarter-operated showers. One can learn a great deal about their skills and gear with a weekend field test.

In "Mr. Lucky (1943)", Cary Grant plays a gambler who always carries a roll of coins in his pocket. There's a scene where he has to "convince" some port official to give a break to a charity group. Off camera, we hear a punch being thrown and then see a bunch of loose coins roll down a set of stairs. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I don't think quarters are particularly useful for my BOB.

No shop will accept them. No vending machine will take them. Can't use them in phones.

Maybe I should invest in a roll of 10p pieces instead. About the same value at the current exchange rate, too. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Ha ha ha ha!!
Welcome aboard, humor is an asset here!

-Blast

You might have to bug a long long long way out...

<img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Thanks guys! If I had to bug out long-distance, the US would be my destination of choice. Love it.

Actually, despite my low post count, I've been posting here for a few years. I'm just very intermittent, to say the least! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Coins also have a non-monetary function as well.

On my last backpacking trip I used up all the pennies in my pocket to improvise tie-down points on a space-blanket I used as an additional rain-cover next to my hammock

Note: extra rubber bands are also a wonderful thing!! I wrap them around my lighter, match case, etc just to have on hand.

I keep two quarters in my wilderness PSK. Why? Because I always have <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />. Seriously, I keep them in there because I have this idea that someday I might be in trouble out in the boonies and find an old-style payphone, maybe in some disused ski lodge or gas station or something. I may remove them the next time I do a gear check because I'm not sure how likely such a scenario is anymore.

Also have to add that the roll of quarters in the DW's car came in handy to make change for my DD's girlscout troop cookie selling outings.

(another chance for daddy to come to the rescue! )


That reminds me: I need to replace the roll in her car ASAP!!! <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

where ever I may be "dumped" , I can find a pay phone or a vending machine. I will have something to munch on and drink!

I also just watched Les Stroud's show "Surviving Urban Disasters" (for the second time) about how to survive flood waters like what was seen in Hurricane Katrina. In it, he busts out a car window using a bunch of coins and keys stuffed into a sock. Another shining example of the virtue of improvisation.

And don't forget cash in your kits -- another useful tool.