A quart of quarters = ??? $$$

I have several mason jars full of change, about half of them are full of nothing but quarters (the new penny?). It’s Sunday and I don’t feel up to counting out a tablespoon of quarters and extrapolating that into a quart because I’m certain that A) it’s been addressed before (and I’m even to lazy to do a search) or B) some doper keeps this type of knowledge at his fingertips (via google). While we are at it, how much would a quart of pennies or nickles or dimes be worth? Mind you, we are talking about a standard quart size mason jar that has been filled to the point where you can just barely get the cap on, just like you would put your change in at night.

First, I have no idea about the actual count you’d get.

It seems to me that due to the spaces you’ll have around the coins, you’re liable to get different results with different countings. Settling will help to maximize the number of coins, but except for The Maximum, which I have no idea how you’d calculate, the best I’d think you would get would be a ballpark estimate which might vary by several coins at a minimum.

Just some rendom thoughts.

Just trying to get a general idea of how much money I have with a minimal amount of effort on my part. :smiley:

$64

If a ballpark estimate would do, I’d get something like a coffee cup and fill it to the brim and count that. Then take an empty jar and see how many cups of water it would take to fill it. Simplest off-the-cuff solution I can think of. :slight_smile:

1.) Weigh an empty jar, then a jar full of quarters. Subtract to get the difference. That’s the net weight.

2.) Put an ounce of quarters on the scale, and count them.

3.) Multiply the net weight of a full jar x the number of quarters in an ounce.

I’m assuming you have a digital kitchen scale, as I do.

Numericana Trivia:

At 4 quarts per gallon, and knocking it down a bit for edge effects, your mason jar holds a couple hundred bucks in quarters.

Divide net weight by 5.670 grams (the weight of one quarter).

I don’t have a scale and I am totally lazy on a Sunday. I’m thinking that there is well over $250 in there.

“The new penny?” Clearly you have a washer/dryer within your own home, lucky dog. :stuck_out_tongue:

Actually, no I don’t. I spend about $6 a week in quarters on the laundry and still have more quarters left over than anything else. I started just dropping all my change in jars about five years ago and the quarters are without a doubt the biggest single mass in my collection.

This thread has some pretty in-depth discussion about this question, considering different proportions of quarters, nickles and dimes. It’s an interesting read.

I can never seem to find a good link to an image, but just get a change pouch. They don’t look girly, and it isn’t any more of a hastle to take out a pouch of change than it is to grab your wallet when it comes time to pay.

Get one with a zipper though.

Off the top of my head, I’m going to say
Pennies - $15
Nickles - $50
Dimes $175
Quarters - $200

I’m basing this on having carried hundreds of boxes of coins and having a general idea as to how big a box is vs how much comes in a box.

Well, I have 10$ roll of quarters and a 1 liter bottle (1qt 1.8oz) A 3X3 grid of quarters makes a square the bottle pretty much sits on perfectly, a bit of corners exposed, and 3.5 rolls makes it to halfway between the point where the bottle tapers and the base of the cap (its a stubby bottle, not a slender one) So, the space between the quarters is canceled somewhat be the corners of the square, and there’s theres an extra 2 ounces maybe canceled by the tapering, in any case, its reasonably close to a quart of quarters, which is 3.5 rolls X 9 = $315… so $300 is a good round estimate I’d say

I don’t think that water would be a good test here. Too many open spaces between coin edges. Better to see how many cups of quarters will fit in a mason jar. Even that would be only a guesstimate, though.

It’d be a lot closer than my guess, but im willing to wager that both are under 10% margin of error

Good point. Good improvement.

That’s a very interesting question. Since the efficiency with which you pack them in is so variable, I don’t think a computation would be reliable. Many banks or credit unions have coin counting machines, I’d say dump them in and let us know.

In the UK, ASDA, which is owned by Wally World, has change counting machines for coins.

I also used to dump shrapnel in jars, drawers, pots and recently gave the lot to my ‘Domestic Hygiene Consultant’. She got a bit confused when it spat out old 50p coins (worth about $1)