Contest: 14 years of change

[KrazyHorse]

Is this in US currency?

[KrazyHorse]

23.96 kg

95.82$ if entirely pennies
1056.20$ if entirely dimes
239.55$ if entirely nickels

In my experience, you will have 5:2:1 pennies to nickels to dimes. The mass fractions will therefore be 50.5% pennies, 40.4% nickels, 9.2% dimes. If so, the total value will be 242.34$

[KrazyHorse]

Darsnan came up with an estimate frighteningly close to mine. It's possible he used the same assumption as to the p:n:d ratio, and the difference is a combination of different values for the mass of the coins and roundoff error

[Straybow]

There was no Canuck currency in the bucket, or any other alien coins. I keep my bucket patriotic, thank you.

There would have been room for a joke about the laughable value of the Loonie, but CAD/USD is up to .89.

[:) Smiley]

Originally posted by Straybow
Hint: it would not cover a month's rent.

where do you live again? you wouldn't believe what a month's rent is over here...

[Mrs. Tuberski]

14.58 us d0llars

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
23.96 kg

95.82$ if entirely pennies
1056.20$ if entirely dimes
239.55$ if entirely nickels

In my experience, you will have 5:2:1 pennies to nickels to dimes. The mass fractions will therefore be 50.5% pennies, 40.4% nickels, 9.2% dimes. If so, the total value will be 242.34$

I think this ratio is wrong.
I did a calculation and assuming you get minimal number of coins in change and that price follow a uniform distribution the ratio should be 5:1:2.

That's also closer to my experience, you usually have more dimes than nickel.

(per 5 transactions, you should get on average 10 pennies, 2 nickels and 4 dimes).

I bet most ppl could also confirm that they usually get more dimes than nickels in change.

I'm too lazy to get the figures for weight put it seems it should push it up in the 300$ range.

EDIT : ok had nothing better to do
using these weights:
-2.500 g -5.000 g -2.268 g


I get 325.45 $ so that's my guess.


EDIT2:
since you get on average 12 cents of pennies, nickels and dime per transaction that amounts, to 2712 transactions, about 3-4 per week.
Does this seem right ?

[Straybow]

Tass, Darsnan, VJ, and KH are the right order of magnitude.

[snoopy369]

I'd actually guess more dimes than nickels, similarly to Lul Thyme's guess. I know from my retail experience that we go through about three or four rolls of dimes to every one roll of nickels ... though both are outweighed by a lot by quarters and pennies. What really depends, is what sort of person Straybow is ... is he an exact changer (probably not, 14 years -> $200-400 is a decent haul) or is he a bill-only guy (probably not, $200-$400 is not THAT much for 14 years), or presumably he's somewhere in between - in which case it depends on how he uses the coins (if he prefers to give up 2 nickels instead of a dime, due to the mass/value ratio, or if he prefers to give the least coins to the clerk to avoid complicating the clerk's math). The former leads to a lot more dimes - the latter more nickels.

My guess is probably somewhere around $320-$350, possibly slightly higher. It depends on the number of quarters. My previous times doing this (far less than 14 years) yielded around $50-$70 for maybe 15 pounds, but heavier on the pennies (I tended to use my silver in vending machines in previous jobs). If my amounts were closer to straybow's (heavier in pennies), then it's closer to $200.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Straybow
Tass, Darsnan, VJ, and KH are the right order of magnitude.

Um, I would suggest that everyone who's guessed in the $100-$999 range is on the same order of magnitude

[snoopy369]

If I have to give an exact number, i'm going to aim a bit low in a price-is-right-scheme and go with $270.

[snoopy369]

As an aside, after reading lul's edit, I'm curious. Do ye nonscientific metric folk typically refer to something having a "weight" in grams? Is this just a term of convenience used by people whose parents used actual measures of weight (ie, pounds), or do "grams" technically have a weight value as well?

[Straybow]

It's the ambiguity of vulgar language.

[snoopy369]

Ahh, okay.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by snoopy369
As an aside, after reading lul's edit, I'm curious. Do ye nonscientific metric folk typically refer to something having a "weight" in grams? Is this just a term of convenience used by people whose parents used actual measures of weight (ie, pounds), or do "grams" technically have a weight value as well?

It took me a few readings to understand your question.

I think maybe you were saying that in metric grams actually measure mass, while newtons measure weight.

Newtons are not used as units in the non-scientific community anywhere as far as I know.

People use gram as the weight of something with a mass of 1 gram in most Earth conditions (unknowingly of course)

Is there even a distinction between mass\weight units in Imperial systems?