[HN Gopher] Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (...
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Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
Author : erehweb
Score : 97 points
Date : 2020-01-20 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sfgate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sfgate.com)
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Couldn't they just get new coins (which would be shiny) from the
| mint? Would that be more expensive than washing them?
| Spooks wrote:
| I would imagine a lot more time consuming. Driving to the bank
| and waiting in line takes time
| gshdg wrote:
| They're currently spending 10 hours per week on this. I can't
| imagine that 2-3 trips per week would take longer than that.
| JshWright wrote:
| It's only what, 4 blocks?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I think (don't quote me on this) that you have to pay extra (on
| top of the value of the coins) to get them 'fresh', because
| handling, packaging, etc.
| asdf21 wrote:
| As a rare coin collector, washed pieces are worth far, far,
| less.. cleaning coins makes them shiny but also wears off
| important details.
|
| I can't help but be slightly mortified by the mass-cleaning of
| coins..
|
| >Along with the coins, the burnisher is filled with water, bird
| shot to knock the dirt off, and a healthy pour of 20 Mule Team
| Borax soap. After three hours of swishing the coins around,
| Holsen uses a metal ice scoop to pour the loot into a perforated
| roast pan that sifts out the bird shot.
|
| Argh, the horror!! I really hope no rare coins have passed
| through this.
| tecleandor wrote:
| Ah, but that makes your already collected coins more valuable
| shaneprrlt wrote:
| Lol, there's always a silver lining. :)
| abeppu wrote:
| Only true before 1965, at which point linings were switched
| to be copper-nickel alloys.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| Why not just use a mild acid instead of an abrasive? I remember
| being delighted as a kid that ketchup made pennies shiny!
| Aloha wrote:
| Borax isnt terribly abrasive though
| traek wrote:
| The bird shot is.
| frandroid wrote:
| The bird shot is another matter
| vanadium wrote:
| I shudder reading that, as a fellow collector.
| samstave wrote:
| Maybe this is the perfect job for a coin collector. Lets assume
| this coin washer already knows this and is allowed to sift
| through every coin that comes through a fancy hotel before
| washing all the plebeian coins.
| gshdg wrote:
| The article says that _after_ washing he goes through them to
| remove foreign coins and other non-standard currency.
| nlh wrote:
| Not sure who's downvoting you, but I came here to say exactly
| this, and you're exactly right!
|
| All my numismatic spidey sense twitched when I read the story.
| I remember one of the first things I learned was that counter
| to instincts, cleaning coins with manual abrasives is bad bad
| bad.
| Theodores wrote:
| What about ultrasonic washing? The machines sold for cleaning
| jewellery? Are they okay?
| ryanmercer wrote:
| Cleaning coins that have potential numismatic value is
| always a no-no, especially if it is something you intend to
| have graded.
|
| Even stuff that doesn't have a numismatic value, just
| common 'junk silver' (non key date coinage with silver
| content) is generally received poorly. (I'm a mod of
| /r/silverbugs). Disrupting/reomivng natural patina, surface
| damage (even microabrasion), artificial toning/patina is
| almost universally undesirable.
|
| Grading services, like PCGS, will even state a coin has
| been cleaned. PCGS's page on 'no grade' coins on cleaning
| https://www.pcgs.com/news/no-grade-coins-pt4 :
|
| "This is a tough category and the subject of much debate
| and discussion over the years. PCGS interprets cleaning as
| surface damage due to any form of abrasive cleaning.
| "Cleaned" covers a wide range or appearances, from a
| grossly polished coin to one where faint hairlines can be
| seen only at a particular angle or in only one area on an
| otherwise perfectly normal coin. This is perhaps the most
| frustrating of all the No Grades, because subtle cleaning
| is often difficult to detect in less-than-optimal grading
| conditions. "Dipping" (the removal of toning with a
| chemical bath) is not considered cleaning under this
| definition, unless it has been done repeatedly or
| improperly. In the past, many coins were cleaned by well-
| meaning numismatists, before the dangers were fully
| understood."
|
| Cleaning with non-abrasives could also lead to artificial
| toning, covered at the same link above in their
| 'questionable color' section:
|
| "Most experienced numismatists appreciate the beauty of a
| spectacularly toned coin. Because toning is a natural
| chemical reaction, there are ways of accelerating the
| process as well as "enhancing" the results. These
| artificial means of creating toning are largely frowned
| upon, and if PCGS encounters a coin which we believe has
| been helped along in the natural toning process, we will
| not assign a numerical grade. A questionable color call can
| also occur if one tries to recolor a copper coin back to
| its original "red" color. Toning is also added in an effort
| to mask a past cleaning. Whatever the reason, collectors
| like their coins naturally toned over many years."
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| There used to be a scam known as "sweating" where the
| scammer would take a bunch of gold or silver coins, put
| them in a bag, and shake the crap out of it for a while.
| Small particles of precious metal would wear off and
| accumulate in the bottom of the bag, which could then be
| recovered and sold as bullion. Afterward the (now
| somewhat-worn) coins could still be spent at their
| original face value.
|
| This was hard to detect compared to other common scams of
| the time(such as clipping or filing the edges of the
| coin) because the wear pattern was pretty close to what
| you'd expect from normal wear and tear.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > As a rare coin collector, washed pieces are worth far, far,
| less.. cleaning coins makes them shiny but also wears off
| important details.
|
| But the hotel isn't going to devote the kind of effort that
| would be necessary to realize any collectable value of the
| coins, whereas shining the coins they handle is literally (if
| only very slightly) burnishing their image.
| NeedMoreTea wrote:
| Don't think they were ever cleaned as vigorously as the article
| describes, but it's not so long since banks used to clean and
| roll coins. Now they mainly use plastic bags.
|
| Not even sure if new coins fresh from the mint are still
| rolled, I can't remember seeing a roll for ages.
| city41 wrote:
| This reminds me of video game collectors complaining when games
| get played as the cartridges get scratched. I think collectors
| need to accept the reality of what they collect. Games are
| meant to be played, and coins generally need to be cleaned.
| simonw wrote:
| I visited this hotel last year and asked around after the cleaned
| coins. The first few staff members I asked had no idea what I was
| talking about - but they found me a more tenured member of staff
| and he told me that they don't do this any more. Which is sad,
| because I wanted some shiny pennies!
| GhostVII wrote:
| Doesn't seem like a super profitable thing to do. The washer
| estimated that he washed 1.5 million in change over 20 years.
| Paying someone 3 days a week over 20 years is a pretty
| significantly portion of that, although it doesn't say how many
| hours a day they are paid for.
| tln wrote:
| 1.5 million in change means more than (since you give out less
| than $1 in change) 1.5 million interactions at the hotel are
| that much nicer.
|
| They also paid a lot for the nice interior at the hotel. It's
| about luxury
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Awful popup videos and ads. Atrocious loading time. Dr;
| Symbiote wrote:
| How many pay with cash at a hotel?
|
| I'd expect it to be very low -- large bills, often paid for by a
| company credit card or in advance online.
| ryanmercer wrote:
| I don't know about hotel but the escort industry thrives on
| motels where I imagine all of them pay cash for their rooms.
|
| I imagine even higher end escorts, that are far more exclusive
| (many of which have websites with paid photo shoot photos and
| online booking for known clients) and do incall in more upscale
| locations, use cash for rooms simply due to the amounts of cash
| they're seeing.
|
| There's at least one subreddit for this industry, intended for
| owrkers only, and I'll peruse it occasionally, but I've never
| seen any of the higher end ones mention how they handle rooms.
| I suspect many have the client get the room, but i can also see
| the client paying cash for the room as well.
|
| ----
|
| Unrelated to escorts, the few times I've used motels/hotels
| I've paid cash simply because they haven't had a terminal on
| the desk and I'm not keen on handing my card over to someone
| behind a desk that you generally can't see over without leaning
| over it. My paranoia screams "great way for them to skim the
| card directly or take photo/video of it". Similarly the few
| times I've rented a car I've let them use my card for the hold
| but have paid cash.
|
| ---
|
| Unrelated to cash:
|
| Hotels go to all sorts of means to build brands (like they are
| doing here with the 'clean coins'). Some chains will even go as
| far as making their locations all _smell_ the same. I remember
| a podcast episode years ago that did a deep dive into hotel
| scent and appearance but for the life of me can 't remember
| what podcast it was, perhaps Planet Money. Here's an article on
| scent branding though https://hbr.org/2018/04/inside-the-
| invisible-but-influential...
|
| It wouldn't surprise me if a hotel even dealing with relatively
| small amounts of coinage in a given week would even go as far
| as hand-sorting rolls from a money service to select new coins
| as part of their brand. Chains do all sorts of psychological
| tricks to give you a familiar experience at their various
| locations in hopes of getting you to use their service over a
| competitor.
| gshdg wrote:
| Even if you're paying cash for a room, how much of that are
| you paying in _coins_?
| Johnny555 wrote:
| For the hotel bill itself, I agree that most people will pay
| via credit card, but I've seen plenty of people paying cash for
| incidentals at the front desk (snacks, drinks, etc) as well as
| at the hotel restaurant/bar.
| samstave wrote:
| There are plenty of times people who are traveling do not
| want a digital record of their payments for things such as
| alcohol or "food for two"
| teddyh wrote:
| Why would anyone want a digital record of _any_ of their
| payments? By default?
|
| EDIT: I should have clarified that I was thinking of a
| digital record _in someone else's possession_. Having a
| record of your own transactions _yourself_ could certainly
| be useful.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Johnny555 makes some good points, but I think the focus
| here is on the case where someone ordinarily ambivalent
| about digital purchase records specifically seeks to
| avoid creating one for a questionable purchase.
| paxys wrote:
| - Reimbursements
|
| - Budgeting
|
| - Mileage points and other rewards
|
| - Being able to dispute transactions
|
| Overall though, few people explicitly want a digital
| record of all their payments. They are just willing to
| accept it because of the convenience that credit cards
| bring.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| One reason is to load it into their employers expense
| system for reimbursement... My company credit card
| expenses automatically show up in our expense system for
| easier expense reporting.
|
| Another reason is so I can audit the charges -- if my
| credit card had an option for "Don't track individual
| purchases", I wouldn't use it since I want to look at the
| charges at the end of the month and make sure they were
| mine.
| jefftk wrote:
| Going even farther, I'd love it if full receipts passed
| through the credit card system. Yes, my credit card
| company would mine the data, but replacing "$20 at
| FOOCORP on 11/23" with "$20 at FOOCORP on 11/23 <click
| for receipt>" would be well worth it to me.
|
| (I wrote up something advocating this in
| https://www.jefftk.com/p/attach-receipts-to-credit-card-
| tran...)
| OJFord wrote:
| There's a startup or two doing that in the UK (can't
| recall the names), but if course it only works for shops
| that are on board and use a till system that supports it.
| tjohns wrote:
| The functionality exists, and many receipts already do
| get uploaded into the credit card network. It's called
| "Level 3" transaction data.
|
| This is especially true for air travel, where ticket
| details are almost always attached to the charge.
| However, I've started seeing it done at some large online
| merchants as well (e.g. Amazon). It's typically used for
| expense tracking on corporate p-cards.
|
| It's rare to see the additional details displayed for
| consumer accounts, but the data is there on the backend.
| cpitman wrote:
| I'm onboard. The amount of time I have to mess with
| receipts is a pain, all for reimbursement. And on the
| other side are receipts I never had any use for, which
| get tossed in the trash immediately.
| northwest65 wrote:
| You've never taken a mistress?
| gorkish wrote:
| He might be one of the only professional money-washers left at a
| private business, but some of the people who rank very highly on
| the currency tracking site www.wheresgeorge.com are known to
| wash, dry, and iron hundreds to thousands of paper banknotes
| every day. Wattsburg Gary, one of the sites top ranked users
| attributes his high "hit rate" to this practice which is about as
| straightforward as it sounds. He runs the money through a regular
| washer and dryer, then irons it, puts his wheresgeorge stamp on
| it, then sends it on its way.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _Along with the coins, the burnisher is filled with water, bird
| shot to knock the dirt off, and a healthy pour of 20 Mule Team
| Borax soap_
|
| Isn't bird shot typically made from lead? Are they coating the
| coins with lead?
| sparrish wrote:
| "Bird shot" is the size of the steal abrasive. Ridiculous to
| think they open up shotgun shells and pour in the projectiles.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ISL wrote:
| It can also be steel, which is apt to work better in this
| context. Lead shot might actually mark up the coins.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| In California, lead shot was a contributor to the near
| extinction of the California Condor so it's effectively banned
| for hunting purposes. You can basically just find steel now.
|
| https://www.kqed.org/science/1944241/lead-ammunition-is-now-...
| Johnny555 wrote:
| It may be banned in certain areas but lead shot is still
| sold:
|
| https://www.cabelas.com/category/104567580.uts?CQ_view=list&.
| ..
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Magnum-Lead-
| Shot-2-25-Pound/dp/B001QV...
|
| And some bans have been reversed:
|
| New U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday issued an
| order overturning an Obama administration ban on the
| controversial use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle used
| on federal lands and waters
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-interior-zinke/new-
| in...
|
| But even if there were a ban, since this hotel has been doing
| this since the 1930's, they could still have a few hundred
| pound bags of real lead shot in the basement that they're
| using for this.
| owlninja wrote:
| Lead is still used for dove and clay shooting. I think in
| most places the steel restrictions only applies to
| waterfowl (may even be federal).
| close04 wrote:
| The point is to keep lead out of the carcasses many other
| animals eat as direct ingestion would cause the second
| most harm (first being to have it delivered straight from
| the barrel). Lead shot that falls to the ground when clay
| shooting is potentially dangerous but far less than when
| ingested.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I'm guessing most ammo being used isn't for hunting, it's
| for target shooting. Lead ammo is still legal for that (and
| ranges can make some decent money by sifting through their
| berms and recycling the lead).
|
| Kind of a moot point, but I don't think Cabela's has any
| locations in California, and they stopped shipping here
| after Prop 63
| Alupis wrote:
| > but I don't think Cabela's has any locations in
| California
|
| No, but Bass Pro Shop is all over, and bought Cabela's a
| few years back.
| newnewpdro wrote:
| They're probably using "bird shot" colloquially to describe
| what's really just a steel abrasive consisting of small metal
| balls.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_abrasives
| [deleted]
| OrgNet wrote:
| They are probably damaging rare/valuable coins by washing them...
| this is a pretty ridiculous idea anyways...
| csense wrote:
| I guess you could say this hotel's definitely laundering money :)
| m4rtink wrote:
| This reminds of Book Off, Japan's biggest used book store. They
| use special machines to slightly shave off edges of books[0], so
| that the books appear newer.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_Off#Operations
| crooked-v wrote:
| That trick with the edges is a pretty good value add, since a
| lot of people don't really care about the actual age or history
| of the book, they just want their bookshelves to appear neat.
| reljac wrote:
| Season 7 of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel showed this in
| action (I still enjoy reruns of Dirty Jobs)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dirty_Jobs_episodes#...
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Here's some video - not sure if it's that episode or something
| different.
|
| https://youtu.be/9IqHCVRbidA
| sevencolors wrote:
| ha! Video title is
|
| MONEY LAUNDERING AT THE WESTIN ST. FRANCIS
| reljac wrote:
| That video isn't the Dirty Jobs video but it does show the
| same room and process (just without all of the Dirty Jobs
| humorous commentary)
| thordenmark wrote:
| I love Dirty Jobs. I don't understand the criticisms of the
| show.
| markdown wrote:
| What criticisms?
| scrollaway wrote:
| Mike Rowe, the guy from Dirty Jobs, got involved with some
| weird online university that promotes a lot of
| conspiratorial crap / climate change denial / things like
| that, and used his fame to promote that stuff. You can
| imagine some people aren't happy about it.
|
| But I definitely loved the series.
| solotronics wrote:
| Change doesn't make sense today. Comparing the value of a penny
| in 1900 it would be worth $0.31 today. Therefore we should get
| rid of pennies, nickles, and dimes. It is a huge waste of human
| time to count these small denominations out. They should round up
| to the nearest $0.25
|
| https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1900?amount=0.01
| ars wrote:
| Personally I think we should just have 1 decimal digit, instead
| of two.
|
| Yes, that means new coins, but the coins the way they are are
| less and less useful every year. At some point we'll have to
| make a change.
| xvector wrote:
| Dimes exist?
|
| Still too granular IMO. If a penny is worth 1/31th of what it
| used to be, we should drop it and go to quarters.
| ars wrote:
| And half dollars exist as well, so we might not actually
| need to issue anything new.
|
| Just slowly collect all the old coins, until only some
| collectors have it.
|
| The quarter idea isn't as good because you are still doing
| math to 2 digits (for example sales tax would have to be
| calculated, then some kind of rounding). Switching to a
| single digit is simpler.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| The number of digits used to write it out doesn't need to
| be thought of as an indicator of simplicity once you
| realize that you're rounding for a purpose unrelated to
| reducing the number of digits written after the decimal
| point (which is a typical reason to round, but is not the
| reason here). Just think of dividing a dollar 10 ways
| versus dividing it 4 ways.
| chaostheory wrote:
| With more and more things going digital everywhere, this
| argument gets less and less important over time
| sethammons wrote:
| Each item rounds up. If you shop for food at the dollar-ish
| store, $1.01 now goes to $1.25. A 14 to 24% price increase that
| will disproportionately affect lower socioeconomic people. As
| someone who lived not so long ago when literally saving a dime
| mattered, no thank you.
| ars wrote:
| How many of your purchases are $1? You only have such a
| dramatic percent when the purchase price is very low.
|
| On a more typical $10 purchase it wouldn't have much effect.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Several countries don't have a 0.01 coin, so they have
| rounding when making a cash payment.
|
| Here in Denmark, where the smallest coin is 0.50kr, and a
| single bag of sugar is 9.95kr, I'll pay 10kr at the till. If
| I buy 6 bags of sugar, which is 59.70kr, then in cash I'd pay
| 59.50kr.
|
| When paying by card, the exact amount is paid.
|
| For the USA, a reasonable first step would be rounding to the
| nearest 5C/.
|
| Someone so poor that 10C/ matters can game the system with
| careful purchases. The shop won't care, since handling the
| 1C/ coins is just a hassle for them.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_rounding
| mark-r wrote:
| When I was a kid, I remember going to a small hobby store
| to buy a couple of bottles of paint. The bottles were $0.25
| each, and I had exactly $0.50. I took my bottles to the
| register and was told the total was $0.51, because of sales
| tax. So I only purchased one bottle, and the total was
| $0.25. As I was leaving I realized that the tax had been
| wiped out, so I went back in and purchased the second
| bottle for $0.25 too.
|
| These days it's common to find pennies on the ground
| because they aren't worth the effort to bend over to pick
| them up. I pick them up anyway, because I still remember a
| time when they mattered.
| TylerE wrote:
| Rounding up is dumb, but that is t really an argument.
|
| There are standard rounding rules (applies to the total, not
| the line item) that result in rounding up and down with equal
| frequency.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Well, pretty much equal frequency.
|
| I think the rule is usually round up $x.x3, but round down
| $0.08.
|
| But there will be more 3s than 8s: Benford's Law:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law
| thoughtstheseus wrote:
| Always rounding up seems unlikely, in particular for price
| sensitive goods.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Retail net margins are often in single digits overall and
| net negative on competitive staples. There may not be room
| in cash flow to round down.
|
| edit: okay, downvoters, what did i get wrong factually? I'm
| just basing this statement on dozens of general, food, and
| discount retail 10-K filings and analysis over longer than
| a decade of following them.
| [deleted]
| ghayes wrote:
| If you're comfortable with not being precise to half pennies
| or $0.001, then there is likely a unit that you feel is
| equitable to round to, and the question is what unit that
| should be. As rounding will favor you as often as it works
| against you (assuming it's not heavily gamed), there should
| be a unit that people trait as fair. As that choice has
| remained the same regardless of inflation, it might be fair
| to say we only use $0.01 because it's what it used to be, not
| because it's the right choice. I would argue that $0.05 or
| $0.10 would be better choices than pennies, for instance.
| jrockway wrote:
| If you visit the grocery store twice a week, then with 24
| cents rounded up each trip (worst case, not average case),
| you pay about $25 a year more for groceries. Meanwhile, if
| you round up to the penny, then the worst case is .9 cents
| twice a week, which is about a dollar a year.
|
| All this pales in comparison to the 1%+ markup due to
| people using credit cards and charging the same price for
| credit cards as cash, though.
| TylerE wrote:
| Worth pointing out that while $0.001 (mil) coins never
| existed, half-cent coins were minted from 1792 to 1857.
|
| Even in 1857 $0.005 was worth way way more than even a
| quarter is today. Probably more than a dollar. (Actual
| inflation gets a bit hard to track going back that far).
| pmiller2 wrote:
| True, but $0.001 (mil) tokens do exist. They were usually
| used for sales tax accounting, IIRC.
| brassattax wrote:
| If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you.
| NeedMoreTea wrote:
| Better would be to revalue the currency by dividing by ten or
| twenty. Change would mean something again, and have some useful
| value.
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(page generated 2020-01-20 23:00 UTC)