Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010) • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by ars » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 8:07 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #70

ars wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I think we should just have 1 decimal digit, instead of two. Yes, that means new coins, but the coins the way they are are less and less useful every year. At some point we'll have to make a change.

Dimes exist? Still too granular IMO. If a penny is worth 1/31th of what it used to be, we should drop it and go to quarters.

And half dollars exist as well, so we might not actually need to issue anything new.

Just slowly collect all the old coins, until only some collectors have it.

The quarter idea isn't as good because you are still doing math to 2 digits (for example sales tax would have to be calculated, then some kind of rounding). Switching to a single digit is simpler.

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

#72

Post by markdown » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

thordenmark wrote: post #37

reljac wrote: post #27

Season 7 of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel showed this in action (I still enjoy reruns of Dirty Jobs) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dirty_Jobs_episodes#...

I love Dirty Jobs. I don't understand the criticisms of the show.

What criticisms?

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

#73

Post by reljac » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

russellbeattie wrote: post #50

reljac wrote: post #27

Season 7 of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel showed this in action (I still enjoy reruns of Dirty Jobs) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dirty_Jobs_episodes#...

Here's some video - not sure if it's that episode or something different. https://youtu.be/9IqHCVRbidA

That video isn't the Dirty Jobs video but it does show the same room and process (just without all of the Dirty Jobs humorous commentary)

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

#74

Post by Symbiote » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

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.

Several countries don't have a 0.01 coin, so they have rounding when making a cash payment.

Here in Denmark, where the smallest coin is 0.50kr, and a single bag of sugar is 9.95kr, I'll pay 10kr at the till. If I buy 6 bags of sugar, which is 59.70kr, then in cash I'd pay 59.50kr.

When paying by card, the exact amount is paid.

For the USA, a reasonable first step would be rounding to the nearest 5¢.

Someone so poor that 10¢ matters can game the system with careful purchases. The shop won't care, since handling the 1¢ coins is just a hassle for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_rounding

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

#75

Post by NeedMoreTea » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

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

Better would be to revalue the currency by dividing by ten or twenty. Change would mean something again, and have some useful value.

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

#76

Post by brassattax » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 8:46 PM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #65

ghayes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Worth pointing out that while $0.001 (mil) coins never existed, half-cent coins were minted from 1792 to 1857. Even in 1857 $0.005 was worth way way more than even a quarter is today. Probably more than a dollar. (Actual inflation gets a bit hard to track going back that far).

If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you.

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

#77

Post by NeedMoreTea » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 8:50 PM UTC

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…

Don't think they were ever cleaned as vigorously as the article describes, but it's not so long since banks used to clean and roll coins. Now they mainly use plastic bags.

Not even sure if new coins fresh from the mint are still rolled, I can't remember seeing a roll for ages.

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

#78

Post by jrockway » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

ghayes wrote: post #59

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.

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…

If you visit the grocery store twice a week, then with 24 cents rounded up each trip (worst case, not average case), you pay about $25 a year more for groceries. Meanwhile, if you round up to the penny, then the worst case is .9 cents twice a week, which is about a dollar a year.

All this pales in comparison to the 1%+ markup due to people using credit cards and charging the same price for credit cards as cash, though.

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

#79

Post by JshWright » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

gshdg wrote: post #52

Spooks wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's only what, 4 blocks?

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

#80

Post by scrollaway » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

markdown wrote: post #72

thordenmark wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Dirty Jobs. I don't understand the criticisms of the show.

What criticisms?

Mike Rowe, the guy from Dirty Jobs, got involved with some weird online university that promotes a lot of conspiratorial crap / climate change denial / things like that, and used his fame to promote that stuff. You can imagine some people aren't happy about it.

But I definitely loved the series.