Money does not stink... really?

I like to keep a few coins in a corner of my desk. The reason is my Thursday night meeting with my mates. I have a reputation for having one beer only (typically a Black Fish), paid in coins.

I don't use cash a lot these days but every time I handle these coins, I swear I can smell them. Or do I? There is a very old saying: « money doesn't stink ». Apparently, the Roman emperor Vespasian coined it around 70 A.D. He had created a tax on urine. Very successful. Indeed, in those days urine was a rare commodity for material dyeing. His son Titus was not impressed though and he pulled his leg about it. Totally unphased, Vespasian stuck a coin under his son's nose saying « pecunia non olet », money does not stink.

What is a smell? We smell something when some volatile chemicals get pumped into our nose. Coins are made of metal, that does not evaporate easily. So Vespasian nailed it, they don't smell. But chemical stuff happens if we rub a coin against our skin. The skin is covered in degraded fatty acids (yuk...) that react with metals. This produces some organic compounds including the world famous « one-octen-3-one ». This stuff is extremely volatile and our nose can pick it up down to a few parts per trillion. So we are smelling it all right, but it's not money, it's ourselves!