[ Interesting ] Money destruction

An interesting topic that I came upon these days is the money destruction. The main question is if you are allowed to demolish money or not. And if you destroy the money, can you use the remains for other purposes. The discussion arose since we heard on the news of some guys that gathered a lot of 1c and 2c coins, melted them and sold them for metal. They earned more than the value of the money, but they were sued for it. This arose the interesting question who owns the coins and the banknotes in my wallet and what am I  allowed to do with them. As expected every single country has individual laws for it.

The basic thing is that in most of the countries the coins and the banknotes are property of the person and in this manner he is allowed to destroy them. However he is not allowed to destroy them with "fraudulent intent".  Basically this means that you are allowed to burn banknotes for fun, but you are not allowed to melt them and cell them for money, but what if you melt them and cell them as a sculpture?! In some countries the coins and the banknotes have on them faces of monarchs and dictators and such are forbidden to be destroyed. More information for the American dollars can be found here: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=77334 . For other currencies...google it!