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Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)

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Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)

#51

Post by paxys »

teddyh wrote: post #28
samstave wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of times people who are traveling do not want a digital record of their payments for things such as alcohol or "food for two"

Why would anyone want a digital record of any of their payments? By default? EDIT: I should have clarified that I was thinking of a digital record in someone else’s possession . Having a record of your own transactions yourself could certainly be useful.

- Reimbursements

- Budgeting

- Mileage points and other rewards

- Being able to dispute transactions

Overall though, few people explicitly want a digital record of all their payments. They are just willing to accept it because of the convenience that credit cards bring.

Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)

#52

Post by gshdg »

Spooks wrote: post #40
diebeforei485 wrote: post #38

Couldn't they just get new coins (which would be shiny) from the mint? Would that be more expensive than washing them?

I would imagine a lot more time consuming. Driving to the bank and waiting in line takes time

They're currently spending 10 hours per week on this. I can't imagine that 2-3 trips per week would take longer than that.

Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)

#53

Post by tln »

GhostVII wrote: post #42

Doesn't seem like a super profitable thing to do. The washer estimated that he washed 1.5 million in change over 20 years. Paying someone 3 days a week over 20 years is a pretty significantly portion of that, although it doesn't say how many hours a day they are paid for.

1.5 million in change means more than (since you give out less than $1 in change) 1.5 million interactions at the hotel are that much nicer.

They also paid a lot for the nice interior at the hotel. It's about luxury

Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)

#54

Post by gshdg »

ryanmercer wrote: post #45
Symbiote wrote: post #5

How many pay with cash at a hotel? I'd expect it to be very low — large bills, often paid for by a company credit card or in advance online.

I don't know about hotel but the escort industry thrives on motels where I imagine all of them pay cash for their rooms. I imagine even higher end escorts, that are far more exclusive (many of which have websites with paid photo shoot photos and online booking for known clients) and do incall in more upscale locations, use cash for rooms simply due to the amounts of cash they're seeing. There's at least one subreddit…

Even if you're paying cash for a room, how much of that are you paying in coins?

Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)

#56

Post by TylerE »

sethammons wrote: post #49
solotronics wrote: post #36

Change doesn't make sense today. Comparing the value of a penny in 1900 it would be worth $0.31 today. Therefore we should get rid of pennies, nickles, and dimes. It is a huge waste of human time to count these small denominations out. They should round up to the nearest $0.25 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1900?amount=0.01

Each item rounds up. If you shop for food at the dollar-ish store, $1.01 now goes to $1.25. A 14 to 24% price increase that will disproportionately affect lower socioeconomic people. As someone who lived not so long ago when literally saving a dime mattered, no thank you.

Rounding up is dumb, but that is t really an argument.

There are standard rounding rules (applies to the total, not the line item) that result in rounding up and down with equal frequency.

Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)

#57

Post by thoughtstheseus »

sethammons wrote: post #49
solotronics wrote: post #36

Change doesn't make sense today. Comparing the value of a penny in 1900 it would be worth $0.31 today. Therefore we should get rid of pennies, nickles, and dimes. It is a huge waste of human time to count these small denominations out. They should round up to the nearest $0.25 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1900?amount=0.01

Each item rounds up. If you shop for food at the dollar-ish store, $1.01 now goes to $1.25. A 14 to 24% price increase that will disproportionately affect lower socioeconomic people. As someone who lived not so long ago when literally saving a dime mattered, no thank you.

Always rounding up seems unlikely, in particular for price sensitive goods.

Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)

#58

Post by gshdg »

samstave wrote: post #25
asdf21 wrote: post #2

As a rare coin collector, washed pieces are worth far, far, less.. cleaning coins makes them shiny but also wears off important details. I can't help but be slightly mortified by the mass-cleaning of coins.. >Along with the coins, the burnisher is filled with water, bird shot to knock the dirt off, and a healthy pour of 20 Mule Team Borax soap. After three hours of swishing the coins around, Holsen uses a metal ice s…

Maybe this is the perfect job for a coin collector. Lets assume this coin washer already knows this and is allowed to sift through every coin that comes through a fancy hotel before washing all the plebeian coins.

The article says that after washing he goes through them to remove foreign coins and other non-standard currency.

Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)

#59

Post by ghayes »

sethammons wrote: post #49
solotronics wrote: post #36

Change doesn't make sense today. Comparing the value of a penny in 1900 it would be worth $0.31 today. Therefore we should get rid of pennies, nickles, and dimes. It is a huge waste of human time to count these small denominations out. They should round up to the nearest $0.25 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1900?amount=0.01

Each item rounds up. If you shop for food at the dollar-ish store, $1.01 now goes to $1.25. A 14 to 24% price increase that will disproportionately affect lower socioeconomic people. As someone who lived not so long ago when literally saving a dime mattered, no thank you.

If you’re comfortable with not being precise to half pennies or $0.001, then there is likely a unit that you feel is equitable to round to, and the question is what unit that should be. As rounding will favor you as often as it works against you (assuming it’s not heavily gamed), there should be a unit that people trait as fair. As that choice has remained the same regardless of inflation, it might be fair to say we only use $0.01 because it’s what it used to be, not because it’s the right choice. I would argue that $0.05 or $0.10 would be better choices than pennies, for instance.

Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)

#60

Post by throwaway5752 »

thoughtstheseus wrote: post #57
sethammons wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each item rounds up. If you shop for food at the dollar-ish store, $1.01 now goes to $1.25. A 14 to 24% price increase that will disproportionately affect lower socioeconomic people. As someone who lived not so long ago when literally saving a dime mattered, no thank you.

Always rounding up seems unlikely, in particular for price sensitive goods.

Retail net margins are often in single digits overall and net negative on competitive staples. There may not be room in cash flow to round down.

edit: okay, downvoters, what did i get wrong factually? I'm just basing this statement on dozens of general, food, and discount retail 10-K filings and analysis over longer than a decade of following them.

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