A hint for interviewing Kiwi oldies of 60-plus
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| 1 | Get yourself ten New Zealand half crown coins, drop them into the hands of an oldie and wait for the memories to flow. They are a great icebreaker. For a start, it's possible that they never had ten of the coins in their hand at any one time. Many people have wonderful memories of half crowns because they bought so much in the 1940s to 1960s. Their face value was two shillings and sixpence (2s 6d or 2/6 and variations) which converted to 25 cents on 10 July 1967. Children in the cities could catch a bus to the CBD, buy a movie ticket and a few lollies on the way into the picture theatre, buy a drink and ice-cream at half-time, catch a bus back home when the movie finished, and still have a little bit of change from a half crown. My oldest sister loved reading so would usually buy herself a Golden Book for 2s 6d whenever she was given a present of a half crown. Some antique and second hand shops carry half crowns and plenty are listed here at TM under "Antiques & collectables > Coins > New Zealand (Pre-decimal)" There's a sub-directory for "Crowns" there, but not all sellers use it, so I search for "half crown" (with space) from "New Zealand (Pre-decimal)" then run the search again for "halfcrown" (no space) and if you want to be really thorough run it again for "2s 6d" and "2/6". There are many variations of the term. The cheapest ones in "average used" condition are between about $1 and $3 and go up to many hundreds of dollars for rare mint ones. Don't mistake crowns for the same thing -- they were never in general circulation. Half crowns were the biggest coins that people carried in their pockets and purses. Because 2/6 coins have deep engraving they collect finger-grease and the grease collects dust and dirt. So they can be pretty grubby, but will usually clean up well with a soft toothbrush, Chux cloth, warm (not boiling) water and soap or baking soda. Rinse off the latter two with plenty of cold water and get a final polish with a dry Chux cloth on the dry coin. Edited by dbb at 8:26 pm, Mon 24 Jun dbb - 2019-06-24 20:14:00 |
| 2 | Great idea! :-) aaronat - 2019-06-29 18:57:00 |
| 3 | Drop a Sovereign in my hand and I would tell some great stories. oramac - 2019-06-29 21:52:00 |
| 4 | I might add, the deep engraving is brilliant to stop your jam sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning during jam-making ... another story! lemming2 - 2019-07-01 15:51:00 |
| 5 | My Dad is wanting to record his memories, can anyone recommend a recording device that would be easy for a 90 year old to use - i.e. large easy to read buttons. Rather than an interview he would just like to sit, hit the record button and reminisce (he does like to talk a lot!). Thanks catsmeat1 - 2019-07-06 10:10:00 |
| 6 | A lot of rubbish about 60+ .My partner is 84 and his friends around the same age haven't got memory problems, For $100 though he might tell you something you should know boby11 - 2019-07-06 12:25:00 |
| 7 | catsmeat1 wrote:
Cell phone, dictaphone machine, tape recorder if you have one, video camera is my preference as it is also of the actual person talking and will hold special memories Edited by crab2 at 2:53 pm, Sat 6 Jul crab2 - 2019-07-06 14:53:00 |
