Had just made a joke about this and it got me wondering: is this a dick move? Is it even legal? Nobody truly believes their wish will come true, right? That’s just free money sitting in the water. Or would most people these days consider them to be donations? I can only assume that someone has to clean them out every now and then so as not to become totally filled with coins. Who would keep it? The city? The private institution that owns the fountain (if in some corporate lobby area or something)? Is it donated to charity?
Secondary question: Is this even a tradition outside the US? How common around the world is throwing coins into wells or fountains and making a wish?
To add to this as someone who has a friend that owns a publicly accessible fountain that needs the coins cleaned out of frequently.
He doesn’t care if a kid steals a handful of coins once in awhile. Most parents will tell their kids to put the coins back so that the person’s wishes still come true, but he doesn’t like when adults try and take coins out for any reason.
The coins are a not insignificant amount of money that helps pay for the cost of running the fountain and having adults fish out all the quarters does make the value of the coins significantly worse when it comes to cleaning time. Granted most people toss pennies to begin with.
Basically don’t dig out coins from a fountain unless you have permission from the owner of said fountain.