Maybe somebody needed them for a payphone.
“Your time is up. Please deposit 10,000 more coins.”
here’s hoping the call wasn’t completed as dialed and he gets his 10,000 coins back.
That’s why making a call in a Roman-era chinese restaurant was just as much of a pain as it was in the 1990s.
“Your time is up. Please deposit 10,000 more coins.”
Not quite the way it worked in Argentina. Ma Bell apparently had the phones everywhere. Argentina nationalized everything. Threw Ma Bell people out, including those who knew how to get the pay phones to respond to new coinage necessary because of inflation. Thus by the mid 60 calls were very cheap. Unfortunately they also kicked out anyone with maintenance knowledge and it was rare to get your call through.