$23 in one dollar coins (small ones, Susan B. Anthony and golden coins)
$20.50 in halves,
$1.75 in quarters,
20¢ in dimes,
20¢ in nickles, and
10¢ in pennies
This has been a fairly routine situation for me, since I’ve started collecting silver halves, and I spend the rest of them (and the dollar coins) for the hell of it.
The biggest problem comes when I want to use the smaller coins. The pennies, nickles, and dimes always seem to sink to the bottom of my pocket, making it difficult to find them when I actually need to use one.
Does anyone make a large coin purse for men with compartments for different denominations? I’d be fine with just two compartments, actually—one or small coins, and one for large coins. I often accumulate far more pennies than I’d like, simply because I don’t want to hold folks up behind me as I hunt for the needle in the haystack.
Do a search for coin wallets and see what all pops up. I still use one now and then with the little plastic “slide trays” for coins; its handy dealing with parking meters and stuff like that. Mine just goes through quarters but its from way before the smaller dollar coins were invented.
Seriously, £1 and 50p coins are common here in the UK, but no one would have that much in those coins on their person. They’d typically be kept in the car for parking meters or in a jar at home.
That’s how this type of sorting works: smaller objects fall through the spaces created by the larger objects.
Also, I get that you collect coins, but why are you carrying more than a kilo of coins (2.2 pounds) in your pocket all the time? I barely carry any paper bills around anymore, let alone carrying coins on a daily basis.
$1 and 50¢ coins are actually rather uncommon here in the U.S. I carry a bunch off $1 coins to help circulate them (switching over to them would apparently save the U.S. government, and consequently, those of us who pay taxes to it, a decent chunk of money, so I’m doing my part)
50¢ coins are scarce as hens’ teeth. Banks always seem to have plenty of them, but they aren’t used much in everyday commerce. People just sort of grew accustomed to their absence back in the 60’s, because of a combination of rising silver prices (halves minted prior to 1971 were 40% silver, and prior to 1965 were 90% silver) and because they put John F. Kennedy’s mug on them after he was shot. People are so accustomed to their absence in everyday commerce, that even after I’ve handed over $4 or $5 worth of them to a cashier, he or she will still dig out two quarters (25¢ coins in the U.S.) to make 50¢ worth of change.
I get the halves because it’s still possible to find silver coins in rolls of them, which are worth considerably more than their 50¢ face value. If I didn’t spend the newer ones in the rolls (from 1971 onward, worth only face value) by the fistful here and there, I’d have most of my net worth in 50¢ coins stashed in jars around my house.
I used to get Susan B’s to fuck with people a bit, and I did so recently, and it was nice.
Why not just keep the dollars and fifty cent pieces in your pocket? Since the real fun comes from spending those, just use those and keep the rest of the change separate and use it for other stuff, or roll it and turn it into the bank later for more of the bigger coins.
I keep change in my car for parking meters. I put any pennies I get back in change in a plastic baggie and dump it into the tip jar at coffee shops. I don’t carry change in my pocket (rarely use cash at all), but this system or a version of it could also work for you.
Strange as it may seem, I also carry many dollar coins at any given time. I prefer them to dollar bills. Mainly so my wallet, i.e. billfold contains bills larger than $1.
I won’t call this convenient but all my coins go into a separate small zippered bag (think 3x6) that is large enough to hold my billfold as well. I think of this bag as my purse. It holds all the money, bills included. It has a loop on it so one finger holds it. The rest of my hands are free for groceries, bags, whatever.
It took a while to get used to but now it’s the cats pajamas. I know that if I have my little brown bag I have all my money. I can throw it into my basically mandatory reusable shopping bag (California) and I am fiscally good to go.
I love the thing, and, after 60 years, I finally understand why women carry purses.
It’ll be much lighter on your feet. The money you save on continuously repairing the pockets in your clothes will more than offset the one-time cost of the briefcase. And they’ve got enough sections and pockets that you can dedicate one section to each denomination. No more fumbling to find the pennies. Being as you’re in Maine you can even have a full set of sections for inevitable Canadian coins you encounter.
Separate item:
Diff’rent strokes and all that. But …
If you’re buying rolls of 50 cent pieces at the bank to filter out the valuable silver ones, you can certainly reroll them and sell them back to the bank just as easily. It’s certainly vastly easier to reroll 20 or 25 or however many of them make a roll than it is to lug them around and spend them individually in 10 transactions 2 or 3 at a time.
