Sorting silver quarters from bag of regular quarters...

ajbauman

This threat might be slighly OT, but I'm thinking of purchasing an existing coin laundry in my area.

That got me thinking about all of the quarters that I would have to go through to find silver ones (if any) and I was wondering if anybody know of any machines that automatically sort silver quarters from clad quarters?

To take it one step further, since I couldn't find anything easily on the web, that if this machine didn't exist what would be the easiest properties of silver coins vs. clad to sort by? For instance, silver conducts electricty better than clad quarters, would it then be possible to create a machine that would run a small current though a quarter and based on the resistance kick it out for further inspection later?

Any other ideas?

PTVETTER

I believe there is a machine that sorts, but the expense isn't woth it

Batman23

Just stack them up in your hand and view the side. Pull anything that does not have a copper color. It won't take too long.

ajbauman

<< <i>I believe there is a machine that sorts, but the expense isn't woth it >>



The business I'm thinking about buying brings in about $10K a month gross...that's 40K quarters a month... the expense might be worth it if there is something that does it automatically.

Do you know of such a machine?

cladking

It's easy enough to make such a machine.

I don't think I'd bother. There isn't that much silver in circulation
and I can go through a bag of quarters to pull silver in three or four
minutes.

Laundry is a great place to find all sorts of coins and you will find
more silver than just about anyone else.

lordmarcovan

You should be able to lay the coins out in a tray of some sort, perhaps prior to wrapping them, and look at the edges that way.

Even without viewing the edges, once you've seen enough silver the difference in color will usually make 'em stick out like a sore thumb, and like Cladking said, you can go through a bag in a matter of minutes without the need for anything mechanical.

BlackBeard

If you are going to be wrapping these yourself, the odds are you will be using a Klopp or simular coin counter.
These still require some handling by hand and you could, as others said, look at the edge of the stack for coins without a clad layer. A completely automatic coin roller is very expensive. The commonly used one runs around $700 and up for a quality one. These count and stack the coins in a tube, the user must still slide the wrapper over the coins. I have found it easier to do this after removing them from the tube. Others may do it differently.

You can also count them into $500 bags and take them to your bank unrolled if you don't want to roll them. It depends on your banks policy how this is handled.

I've rolled from $300 to $1,000 worth of quarters every week for the last 20 years in a vending/arcade side business. After you get used to it, it doesn't take long to roll a bag full. Part of the labor involved in coin-op is coin handling.

As for the silver search, if you don't want to spend the time rolling them and just want to count them, you can just stir them around in the hopper and give a glance for silver. They can be spotted pretty quick with a good eye.

ProofRainbowRoosevelt

Will a magnet stick to clad? If so, that might be an easy way to sort them.

Batman23

<< <i>Will a magnet stick to clad? If so, that might be an easy way to sort them. >>



No. But for some reason a magnet sticks to post 68 Canadian quarters.

MrSpud

Don't Coinstar machines reject silver? Maybe you could get one of those.