Green Aventurine Meaning: Properties, Chakra, How to Use and How to Cleanse

Green aventurine is the Stone of Opportunity, a green quartzite flecked with fuchsite mica that practitioners carry for luck, nerve, and steady growth. It works with the heart chakra rather than the solar plexus, which is why its prosperity reading is about openness instead of hustle. This guide covers green aventurine properties, chakra placement, daily use, safe cleansing, and how to spot dyed quartzite or green glass.

What does green aventurine mean?

Green aventurine meaning centers on opportunity, which is why the stone is known across crystal traditions as the Stone of Opportunity. The reading is more specific than general good luck. Green aventurine is not treated as a wish-granting stone that delivers results while you wait. It is treated as the stone that gets you to say yes, the one that loosens the grip of the comfort zone so the application actually gets sent, the number actually gets dialed, the offer gets accepted while the window is still open. Practitioners hand green aventurine to people standing at thresholds, such as a new business, a move to a new city, a first interview after a long stretch out of work. The color carries the second half of the meaning. Green in this system reads as growth in the botanical sense, slow and cumulative and unglamorous, the kind that shows up in a plant over a season rather than overnight. Older European lapidary practice filed green stones under the heart, and modern crystal work keeps that placement, so the prosperity attached to the green aventurine crystal is prosperity that arrives through openness rather than through grasping.

The name itself supports the meaning, which is unusual among crystals. Aventurine comes from the Italian phrase a ventura, meaning by chance, and it was borrowed from avventurina, a copper-flecked glass produced by Venetian glassmakers on Murano. Glassmaking accounts describe the glitter effect being discovered by accident when metal filings fell into a melt. The mineral was named after the glass rather than the reverse, so green aventurine carries an origin story about a good outcome arriving from a mistake, which is precisely the story practitioners tell about the stone. That is also why green aventurine picked up the folk title of gambler's stone, with older sources describing it carried in the left pocket during games of chance. The modern reading has softened that into favorable odds for the prepared, and practitioners today are clear that green aventurine works on the person rather than on the dice. Its meaning is often summed up as luck you helped along, receptive and patient rather than outward-pushing, the difference between shouting into a room and leaving the door open.

Why is green aventurine called the Stone of Opportunity?

Green aventurine earned the title Stone of Opportunity because its traditional function is opening a door rather than handing over a prize. In this reading, opportunity already exists in a person's life and hesitation is what blocks it, so green aventurine is carried to reduce the hesitation. Practitioners use it for the moment of decision, not the outcome.

Is green aventurine a lucky stone or a heart stone?

Green aventurine is read as both, and the two are connected in its tradition. Its luck is heart-driven: openness, willingness, and the absence of bracing are what practitioners say create the opening. That is why green aventurine sits on the heart chakra rather than the solar plexus, and why its prosperity reading feels gentler than that of a solar stone.

What does green aventurine symbolize in a gift?

Given as a gift, green aventurine symbolizes a wish for someone's fresh start to take root. It is a standard present for a graduation, a business launch, a first apartment, or a return to work after a long break. The message read into it is not sudden fortune but steady, compounding growth and the nerve to begin.

What is green aventurine made of, and what gives it its color and sparkle?

Green aventurine is a quartzite, meaning a dense rock made of interlocking quartz grains, colored green by inclusions of fuchsite, the chromium-rich variety of muscovite mica. That composition explains almost everything about how green aventurine looks and behaves. The quartz gives it a hardness of roughly 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs scale, slightly under single-crystal quartz because it is an aggregate rather than one crystal. The fuchsite gives it the color and the flash. Fuchsite grows in thin plates, and when those plates are scattered through the quartz and oriented every which way, light bounces off them at particular angles as the stone turns. That shimmer has its own name, aventurescence, coined from this very stone and now applied to the same effect in other materials. Green aventurine is a translucent to opaque stone, never clear, and it takes a soft waxy to glassy polish rather than the sharp glassiness of faceted quartz. The green ranges widely, from pale mint through apple and olive to a deep bottle green, and it is common for a single piece to move through several of those shades across its surface.

Most green aventurine on the market comes from India, where deposits in the southern states have supplied the trade for decades and given rise to the trade name Indian jade, which is a marketing label rather than a mineralogical one. Brazil, Russia's Ural Mountains, Chile, Spain, and Tanzania also produce aventurine, and Indian material tends toward mid green with visible mica flecks while some Russian and Brazilian material runs darker and denser with a finer sparkle. Green aventurine specifically requires chromium in the mica, which is what fuchsite provides; hematite or goethite inclusions produce the peach and red-brown aventurine instead. Because the fuchsite plates are much softer than the surrounding quartz, a well-polished green aventurine cabochon usually shows tiny reflective pits where mica plates were plucked out during finishing, and that texture is one of the practical signs of natural material.

What is the sparkle in green aventurine called?

The sparkle in green aventurine is called aventurescence, and the term was named after this stone. It comes from platy fuchsite mica inclusions catching light at specific angles. Unlike the glitter in manufactured goldstone, which shines steadily, aventurescence appears and disappears as the stone rotates, because it depends on the orientation of individual plates.

How hard is green aventurine and can it be scratched?

Green aventurine sits at about 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs scale, hard enough for daily wear but not immune. Loose sand, steel keys, and salt crystals will mark it, and the fuchsite plates at the surface are far softer than the quartz around them, so they abrade first. That is why a well-used pocket stone loses its shimmer before it loses its shape.

Where does green aventurine come from?

The bulk of commercial green aventurine comes from India, which is why the trade nickname Indian jade attached to it. Brazil, the Ural Mountains of Russia, Chile, Spain, and Tanzania also produce it. Indian material typically shows mid green with obvious mica flecks, while some other sources yield darker stone with a finer, denser sparkle.

What are the metaphysical properties of green aventurine?

Green aventurine properties, as practitioners describe them, cluster around four things: opportunity, nerve, emotional recovery, and growth that compounds. The opportunity property is the headline one, and it is understood as a widening of what a person is willing to consider rather than a change in external circumstance. The nerve property is closely related. Green aventurine is the stone reached for when someone knows what they want and freezes at the threshold, and it is described as taking the edge off that specific brand of anticipatory dread. The emotional recovery property is why green aventurine keeps turning up in heart work. It is not read as a grief stone in the acute sense, more as the stone for the phase afterward, when the loss is absorbed but the person has quietly stopped trying. Practitioners describe green aventurine as thawing that. The growth property is the most literal. Green aventurine is the classic gardener's stone, buried in soil and tucked into seed tins, and the same logic extends to anything a person is trying to grow slowly, including a savings balance, a fitness habit, or a business in its first thin year.

Two further properties come up constantly in practice and are worth naming separately. The first is what practitioners call leveling, a smoothing of emotional spikes that makes green aventurine popular for people who overreact and regret it. It is described as taking the heat out of irritation without flattening the person, which is why it is a common desk stone in workplaces full of low-grade friction. The second is a protective quality specific to the heart. Green aventurine is not a shielding stone in the way black stones are treated; it is described instead as a filter that lets warmth in while keeping other people's disappointment out, the property most often cited when it is recommended to caregivers, nurses, and teachers. There is also a persistent association with the physical heart and circulation in older lapidary literature, and green aventurine is still placed over the chest in that tradition. That is a traditional placement, not a medical claim.

Is green aventurine a calming stone?

Green aventurine is calming in a specific way: it is described as leveling emotional spikes rather than sedating. Practitioners give it to people whose stress shows up as irritability and snap reactions rather than as sleeplessness. The effect people report is less flare-up, not less feeling, which is why green aventurine is a common desk stone rather than a bedside one.

Does green aventurine protect against negative energy?

Green aventurine is described as a heart filter rather than a shield. In this tradition it does not repel or block the way dense black stones are said to; it is worked with to keep other people's discouragement from settling in the chest while still letting warmth through. Practitioners in caring professions carry it for exactly this quality.

What emotions is green aventurine used for?

Green aventurine is used for the flat, guarded state that follows disappointment, and for the anticipatory dread that shows up right before a risk. It is not the stone of choice for acute grief or panic. Its reputation is for the aftermath, the stage where someone has quietly stopped putting themselves forward and needs the willingness back.

Which chakra is green aventurine, and how is it placed?

Green aventurine chakra placement is the heart chakra, Anahata, the fourth center, located at the middle of the chest rather than over the physical heart on the left. The assignment is made on color, since Anahata takes the green ray in the color-to-chakra system that Western crystal practice inherited through twentieth-century theosophical and New Age writing. Anahata is described in tantric sources with twelve petals and a hexagram formed by two interlocking triangles, and it is associated with the air element, which suits a stone read as opening and expansive rather than heavy. In practice, green aventurine is placed flat on the sternum, polished side down, with the person lying on their back for ten to twenty minutes. Palm stones and flat tumbles are preferred over points for this because they stay put and spread contact. Green aventurine is also held in both palms during seated breathwork, one stone per hand, to keep attention in the chest.

Because green aventurine reads as opportunity and prosperity but sits at the heart, it produces a distinctive combination that practitioners use deliberately. Money work usually runs through the solar plexus and the root, so pairing green aventurine with a solar plexus stone creates a chain from want to willingness: the lower center supplies drive, the heart supplies the openness to receive. Some practitioners run a three-point layout with green aventurine at the sternum, a grounding stone between the feet, and a bright yellow stone below the ribs, and describe the green aventurine as the piece that keeps ambition from turning brittle. There is a secondary placement worth knowing: some traditions give green aventurine a light touch at the thymus point above the sternum notch, sometimes called the higher heart, used for compassion work and for the sense of breathing fully again after a hard stretch. Green aventurine is not used at the throat, third eye, or crown in mainstream practice, and pieces sold for those centers are marketed loosely rather than traditionally.

How do you use green aventurine for the heart chakra?

Lie on your back and place a flat green aventurine tumble or palm stone at the center of the sternum, not over the left side of the chest. Stay for ten to twenty minutes with slow breathing directed into the space under the stone. Practitioners repeat this daily for a week when working on a specific heart issue rather than doing one long session.

Can green aventurine be worn as a necklace for the heart chakra?

Yes, and a pendant on a chain long enough to rest at the sternum is the most practical way to keep green aventurine at the heart chakra all day. Practitioners choose a length that puts the stone at or just below the notch between the collarbones. A shorter chain sits at the throat, which is not the center green aventurine is worked with.

Which stones pair well with green aventurine at the heart?

Pink heart stones pair naturally with green aventurine, with the green at the sternum and the pink slightly higher. For prosperity work, practitioners add a solar plexus stone below the ribs so drive and receptivity are both represented. A grounding stone at the feet completes the standard layout and keeps the session from feeling floaty.

What are the main green aventurine benefits people work with?

The green aventurine benefits most commonly reported fall into everyday, testable situations rather than vague wellbeing. First is decision courage. People carry green aventurine to interviews, salary conversations, auditions, pitches, and first dates, and describe the benefit as being able to speak before overthinking talks them out of it. Second is opportunity flow, the sense that more things start coming across the desk, which practitioners attribute to the person saying yes more and putting themselves in more rooms. Third is emotional evenness at work, particularly fewer sharp reactions to small provocations. Fourth is the gardening benefit, which is a genuine tradition rather than a joke: green aventurine buried in a planter or kept in a seed tin is the standard green thumb charm, and gardeners pass tumbled pieces along with cuttings. Fifth is heart recovery after a knock, the return of willingness rather than the disappearance of hurt. Sixth is money steadiness, understood as slow accumulation rather than windfall, which is why green aventurine turns up in savings jars and bill drawers rather than lottery rituals. None of these are quick effects by reputation, and green aventurine is described as a stone that works over weeks.

The way practitioners talk about results with green aventurine is worth noting, because it differs from how they talk about flashier stones. Nobody claims green aventurine changes the world overnight. The recurring description is of a lowered threshold, meaning the thing that would have taken three days of working up the nerve takes an afternoon. Users who keep a note of what happened while carrying green aventurine tend to report a cluster of small yeses rather than one large event, and the cluster is what they credit. Green aventurine is not the stone to reach for if what you want is a dramatic clearing; it is the stone to keep in a pocket for six weeks while you change something. It is also worth saying plainly that green aventurine is not a treatment. Traditional literature associates it with the heart, circulation, and skin conditions, and practitioners still place it accordingly, but that is folk tradition and belongs alongside medical care, not instead of it.

How long does it take to notice green aventurine working?

Practitioners typically describe green aventurine as a several-week stone rather than an immediate one. The usual advice is to carry it daily for a full month and keep a short note of what you agreed to or applied for. What people report is an accumulation of small yeses rather than a single dramatic event, which is consistent with its reputation as a slow-growth stone.

Is green aventurine good for money and career?

Green aventurine is a standard money and career stone, but the tradition frames it as steady accumulation and opened doors rather than windfall. It is kept in wallets, bill drawers, savings jars, and money bowls, and carried to interviews and negotiations. Practitioners pair it with a solar plexus stone when the goal needs drive as well as receptivity.

Do gardeners really use green aventurine?

Yes, green aventurine is the traditional green thumb stone and the practice is widespread. Gardeners bury a tumbled piece in the soil of a struggling houseplant, keep one in the seed tin, or pass a stone along with a cutting when they share plants. The stone is durable enough to sit in damp soil, though it should be rinsed and dried afterward.

How do you use green aventurine day to day?

The most common way to use green aventurine is as a pocket stone carried on the side you reach with, taken out and held for a few seconds before any moment that needs nerve. A tumbled piece the size of a thumb pad is the practical shape, since it survives keys and coins better than a carved point. The second most common use is in a wallet, kept flat with the cards rather than loose with change so it does not get scratched. Beyond carrying, practitioners set up a few specific arrangements. A money bowl uses green aventurine with coins and a written intention, kept by the front door or on a desk. A green thumb placement buries a tumble in a planter or drops one in a seed tin. A job search setup keeps a piece on top of the printed resume in a drawer, and the stone comes out and goes in a pocket on interview days. For sleep-adjacent use, green aventurine is usually kept out of the bed, since it is read as activating rather than sedating, and a bedside dish is preferred to under the pillow.

Timing rituals attach to green aventurine more than to most stones. Friday is traditionally assigned to Venus, and because green aventurine picks up a Venus association through the heart and through Taurus, practitioners often start a new carrying cycle on a Friday. The waxing moon is the other favored start point, matching the growth reading, with the stone first held on the new moon while the intention is spoken and then carried through to the full moon. A simple programming routine used with green aventurine is to hold it in the closed left hand, state in one plain sentence what you are willing to say yes to, then carry it without repeating the sentence. Practitioners advise stating a willingness rather than an outcome, because that is what green aventurine is understood to work on. For gridding, green aventurine goes at the perimeter points around a central stone in prosperity layouts, six around one being the usual count, since the tradition treats it as the piece that draws things in rather than the piece that focuses.

Which pocket or hand should you carry green aventurine in?

Older gambling folklore puts green aventurine in the left pocket, following the general rule that the left side receives and the right side sends. Practical practitioners care less about the side and more about access, and recommend the pocket you can reach into quickly, since the stone is meant to be held for a few seconds right before the moment that needs nerve.

How do you make a green aventurine money bowl?

Use a shallow bowl, add several tumbled green aventurine pieces, add coins and a folded note stating what you are working toward, and set it near the front door or on the desk where money decisions are made. Practitioners refresh it monthly, cleaning the stones and rewriting the note, and treat a dusty untouched bowl as inactive.

Should you sleep with green aventurine under your pillow?

Green aventurine is generally kept out of the bed because it is read as opening and activating rather than settling. Practitioners who want it nearby overnight put it in a dish on the nightstand instead. Under-pillow placement also grinds the soft fuchsite at the surface against fabric, which dulls a polished stone faster than pocket carry does.

How do you cleanse and charge green aventurine without damaging it?

Cleanse green aventurine with dry methods first, because the fuchsite mica that gives the stone its color is soft and the surface suffers from repeated wetting. Sound is the safest option: a singing bowl, a chime, or a tuning fork held near the stone for thirty seconds. Smoke from dried herbs works equally well and leaves no residue on quartz. A selenite slab or a bed of dry rice under a lid will do an overnight passive cleanse. If you prefer water, a ten second rinse under cool running water followed by immediate drying with a soft cloth is acceptable for undyed green aventurine, but soaking is not, and salt water should never be used because salt crystals abrade the mica and work into hairline seams. Charging follows the same caution about light. Moonlight is the standard method for green aventurine, left out overnight from moonrise, and the full moon or the waxing phase suits the growth reading best. Earth charging works too: wrap the stone in cloth and bury it in a pot of dry soil for a night, which suits the gardener's association. Keep direct sun exposure short.

The reason green aventurine deserves more care than plain quartz comes down to two mineral facts. Fuchsite is roughly 2 to 3 on the Mohs scale, soft enough to mark with a copper coin, and it sits in stacked plates that lift at the edges once the polish wears. Water gets under those plates. Second, the chromium coloring in fuchsite is sensitive to prolonged ultraviolet light, so a green aventurine piece kept on a south-facing windowsill for a season often comes back paler on the exposed face, sometimes with a gray cast. Practitioners who like solar charging give green aventurine twenty minutes of early morning light and no more. Ultrasonic cleaners are a firm no for green aventurine, since the vibration attacks exactly the mica boundaries that make the stone fragile, and steam cleaning is equally unwise. For a piece that has gone dull, a dry microfiber cloth restores more shine than any liquid will. A sensible rhythm for a carried green aventurine is a sound or smoke cleanse weekly and a moonlight charge monthly.

Can green aventurine be cleansed with salt?

No, salt should be kept away from green aventurine. Dry salt crystals are hard enough to scratch the polish and to abrade the exposed fuchsite plates, and salt water creeps into the grain boundaries of a quartzite and dries there. Practitioners who like a dry bed method substitute uncooked rice or a bed of dried herbs, which are safe.

Will green aventurine fade in sunlight?

Green aventurine can fade with sustained ultraviolet exposure because the chromium in its fuchsite is light-sensitive. Weeks or months on a sunny windowsill typically leave the exposed face pale or grayish while the shaded side stays saturated. Dyed material fades much faster, which is often how an owner discovers their green aventurine was color treated.

How often should green aventurine be cleansed?

A green aventurine carried daily is usually cleansed once a week with sound or smoke and charged under the moon once a month. Practitioners also cleanse it immediately after any heavy day, such as a difficult negotiation or a hospital visit. A stone kept in a drawer or a money bowl needs cleansing far less often, roughly monthly.

How do you spot fake, dyed, or glass green aventurine?

Fake green aventurine falls into three categories, and each has a tell. Green glass is the most common substitute, usually sold as aventurine beads with a bright even glitter. Glass gives itself away by uniformity: the color is identical across the whole piece, the sparkle stays constant as you rotate it instead of flashing on and off, and a loupe often finds round gas bubbles or swirl lines. Glass also warms in the hand within seconds, where real green aventurine stays cool longer. The second category is dyed quartzite or dyed white howlite. Dye concentrates in cracks and along grain boundaries, so the color looks soaked into a network rather than grown through the rock, and there will be no mica flecks. A cotton swab dampened with acetone rubbed on an inconspicuous spot will pick up color from a dyed piece. The third category is honest confusion with green goldstone, a manufactured glass with copper or chromium inclusions that is a legitimate product in its own right but is not green aventurine and is sometimes mislabeled by sellers who do not know the difference.

Beyond the tests, price and shape are informative. Green aventurine is abundant and inexpensive, so a tumbled piece costing a few dollars is entirely normal and a suspiciously cheap price is not by itself evidence of a fake. What should raise an eyebrow is a batch of beads all identically colored and identically sparkly, since natural green aventurine varies piece to piece and even face to face, so perfectly matched strands usually mean glass or heavy dye. Look also for the small reflective pits left where soft fuchsite plates were plucked out during polishing, common on genuine cabochons and absent on glass. Trade names deserve care too: Indian jade means green aventurine, not jade, and a seller using that label at a jade price is misinformed at best. If a piece described as green aventurine shows a fibrous, felted texture and a greasy luster rather than a granular sparkle, it is more likely nephrite or serpentine. When buying online, ask for a photograph taken while the stone is rotated under a single light, since aventurescence shows up in that motion and dyed glitter does not.

What is the difference between green aventurine and green goldstone?

Green goldstone is manufactured glass with metal or chromium inclusions grown in during cooling, while green aventurine is a natural quartzite colored by fuchsite mica. Goldstone shows dense, evenly spaced glitter points that shine constantly and a deep uniform color. Green aventurine varies in tone across a single piece and flashes only at certain angles.

Is green aventurine the same as jade?

No. Green aventurine is quartzite colored by fuchsite and is frequently sold under the trade name Indian jade, which is a marketing label. Real jade is nephrite or jadeite, both of which have a fibrous interlocking texture, a greasy or oily luster, and no mica sparkle. Green aventurine is granular and glittery by comparison.

How do you test green aventurine at home?

Rotate the piece under one light and watch whether the sparkle flashes on and off, which indicates real fuchsite plates. Check the temperature in your hand, since glass warms fast and stone stays cool. Rub an inconspicuous area with an acetone-damped cotton swab to check for dye transfer, and use a loupe to look for round bubbles that would mean glass.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is green aventurine good for?

Green aventurine is used for opportunity, nerve, and steady growth. Practitioners carry it before interviews, pitches, first dates, and any moment where hesitation is the actual obstacle, because the traditional reading of green aventurine is that it loosens the comfort zone rather than delivering luck out of nowhere. It is also the classic gardener's stone, buried in planters or tucked into seed packets for a green thumb, and the standard money-bowl stone in prosperity work. On the emotional side, green aventurine is worked with for heart repair after disappointment, especially the kind that has made someone stop trying. It is a slow, unglamorous stone by reputation, not a dramatic one.

Which chakra is green aventurine?

Green aventurine is a heart chakra stone, Anahata, the fourth chakra at the center of the chest. The pairing is made on color, since the heart chakra is assigned the green ray in the color system most Western crystal practice inherited. This matters for how green aventurine is read: its prosperity association runs through the heart rather than the solar plexus, so practitioners describe it as attracting opportunity through openness and willingness instead of through willpower and drive. Placed flat on the sternum during a lie-down session, green aventurine is the standard choice when the heart feels guarded, tired, or braced against another letdown.

Can green aventurine go in water?

Green aventurine tolerates brief contact with cool water because its bulk is quartz, hardness 6.5 to 7, and it does not dissolve. The problem is the fuchsite mica that makes it green. Fuchsite is soft, roughly 2 to 3 on the Mohs scale, and sits in platy layers that can lift and flake where they meet the surface, so repeated soaking dulls a polished green aventurine over time. Rinse briefly, dry immediately with a soft cloth, and skip long soaks entirely. Salt water is a firm no, since salt crystals abrade the mica and creep into any hairline seam. Dyed green aventurine should never be soaked at all.

Can green aventurine be left in the sun?

Green aventurine should not be left in direct sun for long stretches. The chromium-bearing fuchsite that gives green aventurine its color is sensitive to prolonged ultraviolet light, and pieces parked on a sunny windowsill for months tend to go pale, grayish, or patchy on the exposed face. Dyed material fades far faster, sometimes within weeks, which is one way people discover their stone was dyed. Practitioners who want solar charging give green aventurine twenty minutes of early morning light and bring it back inside. For anything longer, moonlight, a selenite slab, sound, or a bed of dry earth are the safer charging methods.

Which zodiac signs are associated with green aventurine?

Green aventurine is most often assigned to Taurus, with Virgo and Libra as secondary matches. The Taurus link comes through Venus and through the earthy, patient, growth-over-time character practitioners read into the stone. Virgo shares the earth element and gets green aventurine as a worry stone, something to hold when planning tips into anxiety. Libra picks it up through Venus again and through the heart chakra association. None of these assignments is exclusive, and green aventurine is commonly worked with by people of any sign who want the specific quality it is known for, which is the willingness to take a chance rather than wait for certainty.

How can you tell if green aventurine is real?

Real green aventurine shows uneven color and a directional flash rather than a uniform tint and constant glitter. Rotate the piece under a single light source: natural green aventurine has fuchsite platelets that catch the light at particular angles, so the shimmer switches on and off as the stone turns, and the green varies from pale mint to deeper forest across the same piece. Green glass sold as aventurine is dead uniform, warms quickly in the hand, and often carries round bubbles visible with a loupe. Dyed quartzite shows color concentrated along cracks and grain boundaries and will bleed onto a cotton swab dampened with acetone.

Where should you keep green aventurine at home?

Green aventurine is traditionally kept where money and growth are handled: a bowl by the front door, the drawer that holds bills and paperwork, the office desk, or the soil of a houseplant. Feng shui practitioners favor the southeast sector for wealth and the east for family and new growth, both of which take green stones. Gardeners bury a tumbled green aventurine at the base of a struggling plant or keep one in the seed tin. A small piece in a wallet or purse is the most common placement of all, kept with the cards rather than loose with coins so it does not get scratched.