Heck, you can see this in US coinage today. A quarter feels like about half the weight it was when I was a kid. The cost of the metal gets to a point where it doesn't make sense to use it in the currency anymore. For example, if the metal in a quarter was worth more than $.25, you could simply melt it down and sell it for more than the face value (assuming the cost of melting etc. could be brought down at volume).
> A quarter feels like about half the weight it was when I was a kid.
I felt the same, but as far as I can tell the current quarter composition weighs 84% as much as the heaviest quarter ever produced and 90% as much as any quarter made since 1873. The quarter's composition has only changed three times in the history of the United States.
I can think of another reason why a handheld object would seem bigger and heavier when you're young and small, as opposed to when you're old and big...
