Counting Quarters, how?

[slamdvw]

Real dumb question... at the wash I work at, we weigh our quarters to count them.

Is this a normal practice?

The reason I ask, is because I found a discrepancy in counting the coins from our vending machines. According to the scale, we should have 90 something quarters. It was a small enough amount, so I went ahead and counted them by hand - came up with 111 quarters.

According to what I can find, a quarter weighs 5.67 grams, yet when I hand counted, I came up with they should weigh 4.63.

I was thinking making a 'ruler', say... 200 or so quarters tall, like a go-no go gauge. Instead of weighing them, fill the 'ruler', dump it, fill, dump,, and multiply all together.

Thoughts? Kind of noticing a pattern of high dilution chemicals going pretty fast, but according to the quarter 'count' it's pretty slow.

 

[MEP001]

Weighing is perfectly accurate, but you need an accurate scale.

 

[Jeff_L]

I let the bank count mine. They don't charge me.

If you're going to weigh, make sure your tare weight is accurate.

 

[2Biz]

Why don't you get a coin counter? The one I have is relatively cheap and counts 2000 coins a minute. It will separate Quarters, Dimes, And Nickels if you have any machines that take multiple coin denominations. It also has a "Batch" mode that makes rolling easy. There are some videos on youtube if you want to see one in action. As with anything, I'm sure there are better more expensive ones out there. But this one has been flawless for over 3 years.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/High-Speed-...809?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20d3af0f79

 

[Earl Weiss]

I weigh them as well but typicaly not more tan $200.00 at a time, BUT I always make sure a new scale is calibrated correctly by counting and weighing $50, $100, $150 and $200 in quarters and see wat it reads and go by that instead of just calculating what it should weigh and going by that. I use a cheap scale from Harbor freight.

This cale
http://www.harborfreight.com/hand-tools/scales/digital-scale-95364.html Maxes out at 11 lbs and $100 in quarters is 5 lbs without the container so it works for up to $200 plust the container.

 

[soapy]

I have used a scan coin 303 for 20 years and never had a problem with it. It separates coins and is portable.

 

[Randy]

We use a Scan Coin 303 at the car wash to count coins. We bank at Key Bank and they charge $6.00 a bag to deposit Quarters if they are unwrapped so we wrap the Quarters with a Scan Coin 3002, we can wrap a box of Quarters in less than 5 minutes. I just found out a couple of weeks ago that Key Bank is going to start charging for cash deposits. We checked with a few of the other Banks in our area and they are all going to start charging for cash deposits.

 

[soapy]

My local Key Bank likes me to bring them cash. They say it saves them money when they do not have to get it from the Feds. If they do start to charge I will take them to my other local bank. Key Bank here takes my quarters in bags in $500 or $1000 dollar increments for no charge.

 

[JMMUSTANG]

Randy I had the same problem several years ago with my bank.
Since they said the charge was per bag ($1.85 per bag) I asked them if it matter if I used the larger bags. They said corporate said it was per bag no matter of size.
So I got some bags that were 2 feet tall and filled them up with quarters.
Can't remember exactly how much it was but it was several thousand dollars.
I had to use a dolly to get it into the bank.
They weren't happy about it but had to admit that I was right so they charged me $1.85.
After making several deposits like this I think Brinks must have said something to corporate because they changed it to no more than a $1,000 per bag only.
They also started charging an analyst fee for more that 15 deposits per month.
I use to deposit quarters and dollar bills seperatly so I made 3-4 combined large deposits per month instead of daily.
Changed to another bank after that.
It was fun while it lasted.

 

[MEP001]

Our bank doesn't charge to take quarters for deposit, but they will only take them bagged in $500, and the bags cost about 75 cents each.

 

[Mr. Clean]

Time to change banks! I used to roll for deposit and learned that the teller had to unroll into $1k bags. Now they supply plastic bags and take them in bulk, no charge.
Soon going to dollar coins so hauling quarters should be minimal.
MC

 

[MudMoney]

JMMustang
What is an analyst fee?WTH your a customer and banks want to charge a business for putting your money there.I'm glad I live where I do.

 

[seattleguy]

Randy - I bank at Sterling. I use a scan coin 303 and count 2000 quarters - $500 and put them in a coinlok bag.
Item # 501057 at office depot. Sterling doesn't charge me anything for the deposit or cash. Key and US Bank wanted to charge a fee. Umpqua jsut bought Sterling so I hope nothing changes.

 

[JMMUSTANG]

Never got a real answer.
The best the manager of the bank came up with is some sort of "activity" in the accounts. Fees ranged from .16 to $6-7 per month per account.
I told him it should be called "anal - yst" fee.
This same bank would call me from time to time and ask if I could make a deposit because either they had an unusual amount of cash withdrawals or Brinks hadn't shown up yet and they were running short of quarters.

 

[gearhead]

A fee to deposit your money? Seriously? Holy Crap! What's next? A pay machine at the front door with a sign on it that says " Please insert $1.50 for the first 3 minutes... or bank all you want for $5.00! Unreal.

 

[mjwalsh]

Never got a real answer.
The best the manager of the bank came up with is some sort of "activity" in the accounts. Fees ranged from .16 to $6-7 per month per account.
I told him it should be called "anal - yst" fee.
This same bank would call me from time to time and ask if I could make a deposit because either they had an unusual amount of cash withdrawals or Brinks hadn't shown up yet and they were running short of quarters.

JMMUSTANG & others,

Did you say that was one of the too big to fail megabanks called US Bank &/or Wells Fargo? If your city has a state owned bank like we do & they are experiencing record almost 100 million dollar profits along with their almost 100 million dollar building ... don't you dare offer some constructive criticism ... you might become (gulp ) a local political target ... with not always nationwide support to offset ....

I don't believe there is any reason to throw out the baby with the wash water though. I think at some point we have to take some bank people by the hand, & gently lead them to rational & logical thoughts. We had something similar to what you described where the head teller more than once called us that they needed quarters because they were low on quantity. We made a special trip to them to accommodate them each time. Yet, later on pathetically these goofy extra charges for coin start showing up on our account. Which of course, by doing business with more than one bank ... like Soapy explained as a standby alternative ... allows for an easy workaround ... especially since we need to exchange coins for $5 bills for our ATM anyway. One of the local Credit Unions is more accommodating when it comes to that for the most part too.

Recently, we upgraded our status by agreeing to a minimum acct balance of 20K combined total for both our ATM acct & our main business acct. That upped the # of free transactions so now we have no transaction (analysis) fees whatsoever.

I am convinced that our Cummins 2000 Coin Counter was one of the best investments that we have made based on almost 12 years of zero maintenance needed. That & its unbelievable speed ... speaks volumes about how it outperforms any dollar bill (ones) counter ... beyond a shadow of a doubt!

mike walsh http://www.kingkoin.com/USA_Deficit_Reduction.html

 

[Twodose]

Purchased a Klopp coin scale, accuracy is within .50 cents, due to wear on the coins.

 

[JGinther]

I just thought of the answer to this problem. Pay your note payment with quarters and dollar bills! HA! If you don't have a loan there, bank somewhere else!

 

[Twodose]

Why don't you get a coin counter? The one I have is relatively cheap and counts 2000 coins a minute. It will separate Quarters, Dimes, And Nickels if you have any machines that take multiple coin denominations. It also has a "Batch" mode that makes rolling easy. There are some videos on youtube if you want to see one in action. As with anything, I'm sure there are better more expensive ones out there. But this one has been flawless for over 3 years.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/High-Speed-...809?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20d3af0f79

will this counter count wet coin's?

 

[Twodose]

Why would you use $1 coins instead of tokens valued at $1? Do you think your customers would appreciate getting a $1 coin that they can use somewhere else besides your car wash? Seems it would be easier to dispense tokens instead of purchasing $1 coins to replenish your changer. Just curious.