What a Pound of Change is Worth
Apr 05, 2012 12:49 am • Permalink 
After seeing his friend's CoinStar receipt for 27 pounds of coins that equalled $256.14, Dan Kozikowski dug deeper and estimated what a pound of change is worth, on average.
Now, to finish out the analysis, let's tie this back to weight. Fortunately, the U.S. Mint standardizes and publishes the weight of each coin here. With that in hand... drumroll please... we'd expect about 34.9 quarters, 19.8 dimes, 11.5 nickels, and 61.2 pennies in a New York pound of coins, for a total value of $12.00. A Boston pound is worth slightly less&mdsah;$11.81.
I love it when people analyze the everyday. (Although I'm sure CoinStar looks at distributions like this all the time for storage supply something or other.)
Alas, the coin distribution of Kozikowski's friend didn't quite match the estimate, as shown in the graph above. He attributes it to the friend spending quarters, dimes, and nickels before going to the CoinStar. There are only fewer quarters though and almost twice the expected count of dimes and nickels, so the model needs to be refined.
Members Only: Interactive Time Series Chart with Filters
Apr 04, 2012 09:20 am • Permalink Time series charts can easily turn to spaghetti when you have multiple categories. By highlighting the ones of interest, you can direct focus and allow comparisons.
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