I filled one of those water cooler bottle about 1/4 of the way up with nickels. That was enough to teach me that you never want to fill one of those bottle up with change. What a pain in the ass that was getting them out.

Yes, and about $3000 if I remember correctly. I had some paper money mixed in.

quote:

Originally posted by OttoSig:
The volume of 2.5 dimes is approximately 5% more than a quarter, so all things being equal, the quarters would yield more.

Yep you're right.
5 gallon of quarters $5,859
5 gallon of dimes $3,100.

I had over 5000 quarters and probably the same in nickels and dimes.
Bank doesn't have counters anymore, said they were too expensive to maintain.
I'll bet I have well over 100 pounds of pennies in the garage, don't feel
like messing with them.

WOW !!! Over 1/2 Million dollars !!! God Bless

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
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We had an antique 5 gallon water jug that was put upside down in drinking dispensers.

We filled it halfway twice. We used predominantly quarters. We bought a change wrapping machine.

We were filling one up. It was all quarters and dimes. It was about three inches full, maybe a little more. Over $2k.

So if you have a mostly full water jug with quarters and dimes, I’d say a bike in the $12k range should be doable in a couple years, when you finish counting all the change.

My Credit Union has a change counting machine in the lobby . No surcharge for members .

Yes, I had one filled up to the neck before I brought it into my bank to be counted and deposited.

I actually transferred the coins to two big 5 gallon buckets to make it easy to transport and hedge against the disaster of the jug breaking open along the way.

Over the years we poached a lot of the quarters out for the manual car wash, laundry machines used on vacations, parking meters and a two growth height trackers for my two children.

My total was a little bit over ~$1.4K iirc.

A #10 can consistently held ~$300 for me when I was collecting random pocket change. That's probably going to be a little north of $2,000 for a 5 gallon container. Yours could be considerably higher if it's mostly quarters.

Many,many,many years ago back in the early 80s I worked for a family that owned a lighting/electrical supply business.

I was working in the warehouse one day when the owner comes to me and says, bring the box truck and a hand truck to his house tomorrow morning.

When I get to his house he has me back the truck up to his garage door. Once the door is open he points to a 30 gallon garbage can and says, we need to get this in the box truck so we can bring this to the bank.

When he takes the cover off it is filled with all the change he and his family had saved for many, many years.

First I am thinking how are we going to get this in the truck because it does not have a lift. He was thinking we could roll it up using planks as a ramp.
As we try to get the hand truck under it we could not budge it at all, it would not move.

I suggested he go to the bank and get change bags and bring them to the bank a few at a time, thats what he did.

I never did ask how much he finally ended up with. From what I remember he told me it was all quarters, dime, nickles and penny's.

Twice a year i'd see morons at the grocery store in Mesa with five gallon buckets full of coins using the " pay machines" to count money.


I could be wrong but I thought they charged 10% to count it out.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
Twice a year i'd see morons at the grocery store in Mesa with five gallon buckets full of coins using the " pay machines" to count money.


I could be wrong but I thought they charged 10% to count it out.

Most of the time, yes.

But there are a few considerations:

1) Some machines allow 100% redemption on certain gift cards. For example, you might be able to get 90% as cash, or 100% as an Amazon or Lowes gift card. (Won't help the OP with buying a motorcycle, but can make sense in other situations.)

2) Many/most banks no longer offer change machines, and will only take large quantities of coins if they're rolled. So to some it may be worth "paying" 5-10% for the convenience of not having to spend hours/days hand-rolling 5 gallons worth of coins.

quote:

2) Many/most banks no longer offer change machines, and will only take large quantities of coins if they're rolled. So to some it may be worth "paying" 5-10% for the convenience of not having to spend hours/days hand-rolling 5 gallons worth of coins.

I just stopped in my bank and they handed me a box of those paper coin rolls so over the next few weeks I'll be counting coins. I'm retired with plenty of time on my hands so if it takes me a few weeks to get everything counted/packed it's OK because I'm in no hurry. I don't expect to have enough saved to buy the new motorcycle but I do hope it helps with providing a nice down payment.

Years back when my friend still had his ice cream truck, I went in his basement and he wad 10-12 Five gallon buckets full of change just sitting there. I said What are you doing? Cash it in! He said "I just can't do it anymore." Meaning sorting and rolling it. That was back before the banks and stores had machines.

A few years down the road he was between jobs for a while, those buckets were no doubt what got him through.



I'm over due to take my change to the grocery store coin machine and cash it in. Last time I waited way too long and it was several trips to do it without too much fuss. Right now I have enough to be worth doing, but not so much I couldn't carry it all at once. Last time I redeemed it in Amazon gift cards. Didn't lose a percentage and I will spend that much there at some point anyway, so why not.

Maybe I’m a weirdo but I REALLY like sorting and rolling change.

Back in the early to mid 1990's, just about every week I would drive during my lunch hour to a small local gun shop just to see what was new.
My brother-in-law had been looking for a Ruger M 77 Mark 2 bolt action rifle chambered in .223, stainless steel, boat paddle synthetic stock.
He was having great difficulty locating one.
Anyway, I went to that store on my lunch hour, and just like that, there was the brand new Ruger rifle for sale.
I asked the store owner if I could make a long distance phone call using his store phone, as I knew someone that was looking for that exact rifle. (pre cell phone days, at least for me)
I knew my BIL would be at work, so I left him a message on his home answering machine about the rifle.
My BIL took his glass five gallon change jar to the gun shop that evening, and the two of them counted out the purchase price on top of the glass topped pistol cases.
We still laugh about it.

It's been a very nice rifle over all those years.

I have six U S bank s
In the vicinity and only two of them will sort and count.

quote:

Originally posted by VBVAGUY:
WOW !!! Over 1/2 Million dollars !!! God Bless

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
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I'd like to know how much it'd be worth if he stopped in the 70's took the extra 25% from the government and invested it in the S&P 500 for all these years?