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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)

#41

Post by tjohns »

jefftk wrote: post #33
Johnny555 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is to load it into their employers expense system for reimbursement... My company credit card expenses automatically show up in our expense system for easier expense reporting. Another reason is so I can audit the charges -- if my credit card had an option for "Don't track individual purchases", I wouldn't use it since I want to look at the charges at the end of the month and make sure they were mine.

Going even farther, I'd love it if full receipts passed through the credit card system. Yes, my credit card company would mine the data, but replacing "$20 at FOOCORP on 11/23" with "$20 at FOOCORP on 11/23 " would be well worth it to me. (I wrote up something advocating this in https://www.jefftk.com/p/attach-receipts-to-credit-card-tran... )

The functionality exists, and many receipts already do get uploaded into the credit card network. It’s called “Level 3” transaction data.

This is especially true for air travel, where ticket details are almost always attached to the charge. However, I’ve started seeing it done at some large online merchants as well (e.g. Amazon). It’s typically used for expense tracking on corporate p-cards.

It’s rare to see the additional details displayed for consumer accounts, but the data is there on the backend.

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

#42

Post by GhostVII »

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.

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

#44

Post by cpitman »

jefftk wrote: post #33
Johnny555 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is to load it into their employers expense system for reimbursement... My company credit card expenses automatically show up in our expense system for easier expense reporting. Another reason is so I can audit the charges -- if my credit card had an option for "Don't track individual purchases", I wouldn't use it since I want to look at the charges at the end of the month and make sure they were mine.

Going even farther, I'd love it if full receipts passed through the credit card system. Yes, my credit card company would mine the data, but replacing "$20 at FOOCORP on 11/23" with "$20 at FOOCORP on 11/23 " would be well worth it to me. (I wrote up something advocating this in https://www.jefftk.com/p/attach-receipts-to-credit-card-tran... )

I'm onboard. The amount of time I have to mess with receipts is a pain, all for reimbursement. And on the other side are receipts I never had any use for, which get tossed in the trash immediately.

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

#45

Post by ryanmercer »

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 for this industry, intended for owrkers only, and I'll peruse it occasionally, but I've never seen any of the higher end ones mention how they handle rooms. I suspect many have the client get the room, but i can also see the client paying cash for the room as well.

----

Unrelated to escorts, the few times I've used motels/hotels I've paid cash simply because they haven't had a terminal on the desk and I'm not keen on handing my card over to someone behind a desk that you generally can't see over without leaning over it. My paranoia screams "great way for them to skim the card directly or take photo/video of it". Similarly the few times I've rented a car I've let them use my card for the hold but have paid cash.

---

Unrelated to cash:

Hotels go to all sorts of means to build brands (like they are doing here with the 'clean coins'). Some chains will even go as far as making their locations all smell the same. I remember a podcast episode years ago that did a deep dive into hotel scent and appearance but for the life of me can't remember what podcast it was, perhaps Planet Money. Here's an article on scent branding though https://hbr.org/2018/04/inside-the-invisible-but-influential...

It wouldn't surprise me if a hotel even dealing with relatively small amounts of coinage in a given week would even go as far as hand-sorting rolls from a money service to select new coins as part of their brand. Chains do all sorts of psychological tricks to give you a familiar experience at their various locations in hopes of getting you to use their service over a competitor.

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

#46

Post by ryanmercer »

Theodores wrote: post #23
nlh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure who's downvoting you, but I came here to say exactly this, and you're exactly right! All my numismatic spidey sense twitched when I read the story. I remember one of the first things I learned was that counter to instincts, cleaning coins with manual abrasives is bad bad bad.

What about ultrasonic washing? The machines sold for cleaning jewellery? Are they okay?

Cleaning coins that have potential numismatic value is always a no-no, especially if it is something you intend to have graded.

Even stuff that doesn't have a numismatic value, just common 'junk silver' (non key date coinage with silver content) is generally received poorly. (I'm a mod of /r/silverbugs). Disrupting/reomivng natural patina, surface damage (even microabrasion), artificial toning/patina is almost universally undesirable.

Grading services, like PCGS, will even state a coin has been cleaned. PCGS's page on 'no grade' coins on cleaning https://www.pcgs.com/news/no-grade-coins-pt4 :

"This is a tough category and the subject of much debate and discussion over the years. PCGS interprets cleaning as surface damage due to any form of abrasive cleaning. "Cleaned" covers a wide range or appearances, from a grossly polished coin to one where faint hairlines can be seen only at a particular angle or in only one area on an otherwise perfectly normal coin. This is perhaps the most frustrating of all the No Grades, because subtle cleaning is often difficult to detect in less-than-optimal grading conditions. "Dipping" (the removal of toning with a chemical bath) is not considered cleaning under this definition, unless it has been done repeatedly or improperly. In the past, many coins were cleaned by well-meaning numismatists, before the dangers were fully understood."

Cleaning with non-abrasives could also lead to artificial toning, covered at the same link above in their 'questionable color' section:

"Most experienced numismatists appreciate the beauty of a spectacularly toned coin. Because toning is a natural chemical reaction, there are ways of accelerating the process as well as "enhancing" the results. These artificial means of creating toning are largely frowned upon, and if PCGS encounters a coin which we believe has been helped along in the natural toning process, we will not assign a numerical grade. A questionable color call can also occur if one tries to recolor a copper coin back to its original "red" color. Toning is also added in an effort to mask a past cleaning. Whatever the reason, collectors like their coins naturally toned over many years."

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

#48

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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 think (don't quote me on this) that you have to pay extra (on top of the value of the coins) to get them 'fresh', because handling, packaging, etc.

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

#49

Post by sethammons »

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.

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

#50

Post by russellbeattie »

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

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