I visited this hotel last year and asked around after the cleaned coins. The first few staff members I asked had no idea what I was talking about - but they found me a more tenured member of staff and he told me that they don't do this any more. Which is sad, because I wanted some shiny pennies!
Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
101–110 of 119 posts
Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
#102He might be one of the only professional money-washers left at a private business, but some of the people who rank very highly on the currency tracking site www.wheresgeorge.com are known to wash, dry, and iron hundreds to thousands of paper banknotes every day. Wattsburg Gary, one of the sites top ranked users attributes his high "hit rate" to this practice which is about as straightforward as it sounds. He runs the…
Sounds like money laundering but I guess it’s legal in his case.
Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Bird shot" is the size of the steal abrasive. Ridiculous to think they open up shotgun shells and pour in the projectiles.
You can buy it by the barrel. Good chance they did use real shot at some point.
Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
#104Change 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
The last time the US deprecated a coin denomination was the half cent in 1857. Due to inflation!
Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
#105Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it totally doesn't make sense. The coins are worth so little now. Also making pennies adds $2m a year to our trade deficit with China.
Huh? Are pennies sourced from China?
Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
When I was a kid, I remember going to a small hobby store to buy a couple of bottles of paint. The bottles were $0.25 each, and I had exactly $0.50. I took my bottles to the register and was told the total was $0.51, because of sales tax. So I only purchased one bottle, and the total was $0.25. As I was leaving I realized that the tax had been wiped out, so I went back in and purchased the second bottle for $0.25 too…
Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
#108Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was a kid, I remember going to a small hobby store to buy a couple of bottles of paint. The bottles were $0.25 each, and I had exactly $0.50. I took my bottles to the register and was told the total was $0.51, because of sales tax. So I only purchased one bottle, and the total was $0.25. As I was leaving I realized that the tax had been wiped out, so I went back in and purchased the second bottle for $0.25 too…
I'm envious of the <2% sales tax rate.
Re: Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
#110Earlier 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.