Money Does not Smell, You Do

By Anupum Pant

Do you notice that smell off your hands after you have handled pennies, or touched an iron railing, or anything metallic for that matter? There’s a hint of metallic smell left on your hands, right?

Well, that’s not the metal you are smelling. The smell comes from the compounds on your hand that change when iron or copper touches them. So if someone hands you a few coins and you smell the metallic odor, you actually are smelling something that has passed off from their bodies. And it smells like metal because you’ve always associated that smell with metal.

[Nature]