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May 21, 2004
The Change is All Counted!
In honor of the last day of community week, I will be giving away a free DRK to Steve Nelson. My change jar contained exactly $363.75 worth of change, and Steve's guess was $362.56, making him off by only $1.19. Congratulations, Steve! I'll be contacting you directly.
Now for some other interesting statistics:
Total number of entries: 76 (between comments and personal email)
Highest guess: $764.19 (I wish!)
Lowest guess: $98.00
Most scientific guess: 1 penny weighs 2.5 grams. 1 nickel weighs 5.0 grams. 1 dime weighs 2.268 grams. so 1 penny + 1 nickel + 1 dime weighs 9.768 grams and is worth of $0.16. 1. assume the collection is random, but no Quarter; 2. assume the jar itself weighs 2 pounds (just a wild guess ... if this is not close enough, the guess won't). 35.5 - 2 = 33.5 pounds = 33.5 * 453.6 = 15195.6 grams. 15195.6/9.768 * 0.16 = $ 248.90
Runner up for most scientific guess: Other than myself, 63 guesses placed. Lowest 113.08, highest 764.19...Most guesses are placed between the 300 and 400 (21 of them). Average value is $334.60. Now, if we sample the coin count from the well lit part of the picture we assume that 35% pennies, 26% nickels, 22%dimes and 17% quarters jar contains. Distributing the total weight to coin types and calculating the actual values with per coin type unique wieght gives us $360.00. I will go with the average of these 2 values, so my guess is $347.30.
Least scientific guess: $123.45
Most important lesson learned: Next time, just use Coinstar! (As Sam warned.)
Thanks for playing, all! It was fun (except the counting part)!
Posted by cantrell at May 21, 2004 12:46 PM
Comments
Woohoo! Least scientific! What do I win? :D
Posted by: Josh Dura at May 21, 2004 12:56 PM
Do I get "runner up for least scientific guess" ?
At $345.67 I was pretty darn close ;0)
Posted by: Geoffrey Williams (TMMCentral) at May 21, 2004 1:39 PM
Close to $400 in a coin jar? Dude, keep adding to it, and then bring it to MAX for beer money. :-)
Posted by: Ben Forta at May 21, 2004 1:53 PM
Would you still do CoinStar if the change was pre-sorted? 8% seems a bit steep on coins such as pre-sorted quarters...
I have an abundance of sorted change which I've been saving for about 8 years.. recently did the CoinStar thing with the pennies since there was no way I was going to wrap and sort them myself and it came out to $32.35 IIRC.
Although, it's nice to have the quarters around for the self-service car wash.
Posted by: Brandon Harper at May 21, 2004 2:25 PM
woah there - $400 for beer? in NOLA? it's only 4 days, Ben -- $200 will more than get you drunk in this town! $400 and you'd be in a coma! ;-)
Posted by: g.wygonik at May 21, 2004 3:41 PM
Avoid Coinstar, just take it to your bank. Mine (Wells Fargo) sorts coins for free, and it would save you about $30.
Posted by: Ian at May 21, 2004 6:44 PM
Ben,
Bring that beer money up to Calgary for the next Calgary Flash Users Group meeting. That $400 translates into around $600 CDN and we have higher octane beer.
Posted by: Thomas Kryton at May 25, 2004 2:48 PM
This is so funny, I just use a coin organizer, put it into paper rolls, and then pile it into a box.
Then you take it to the bank..
Posted by: Craig M. Rosenblum at May 26, 2004 6:48 PM