Can you precisely weight a roll of coins to see if it has clipped coin in the roll?

jessewvu

I was wondering if you had a precise scale, could you weight two rolls of coins, say bank wrapped presidential dollar rolls or quarter rolls and be able to determine if there is a clipped coin in the roll? Do the weights of the rolls vary so much that it would be difficult to do?

UtahCoin

Well, seeing as they have scales that weigh stacks of dollar (or 5's 10's what ever) and tell you how many are there, I would guess that you could weigh a roll of coins to find out. Better idea would be to weigh BAGS of coins!

TwoSides2aCoin

I can't. You can try, however.

kranky

I don't think it could be done with any level of confidence, since each coin can vary slightly from the ideal weight. In the case of presidential dollars, it's 2.4% more or less than the ideal weight of 8.1 grams. Ideally, a 25-coin roll would weigh 202.5 grams. If every coin was on the light side of the tolerance, it could weigh as little as 197.6 grams, or if every coin was on the heavy side, it could weigh as much as 207.3 grams. That's a variance of 9.7 grams - more than any single coin could weigh. Therefore, even a major clip, and the accompanying lighter weight, could be lost in the variance.

The only way you could be sure (or at least have a reason to investigate the roll further) is if a roll weighed less than 197.6 grams. Of course, it's very unlikely that any roll would weigh the minimum or maximum possible weight, but still, you'd never be able to know if a particular roll weighs what it does because one of the coins is clipped.

GrumpyEd

Sometimes you can find errors in a roll without opening them.

I could see these through the rolls because the coins had one thin edge and one thick edge and the thin edges were cutting through the paper rolls so you could see them before opening the rolls. Each coin is like a wedge so if you stack a few it's not straight.

These are uncentered broadstrikes struck against a stiff collar.

TwoSides2aCoin

A sense of feel would be better than precise weight for finding such an error in a roll without opening it.