# How much do coins weigh, en masse?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-coins-weigh-en-masse/67762
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 6, 2001, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-coins-weigh-en-masse/67762 "2001-06-06T03:31:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2001, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-coins-weigh-en-masse/67762/1 "2001-06-06T03:31:07Z")
I throw all my change into a couple of Ragu jars, sorted by type. Pennies in one jar, dimes in another, and so on. To get a rough estimate of how much moolah I had, I figured I could weigh the jars and convert the weight directly into dollars. Haven’t had much luck finding dollars per pound figures for change though. Anyone have a clue?
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### Author:  [@Beruang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beruang)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2001, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-coins-weigh-en-masse/67762/2 "2001-06-06T03:55:48Z")
[http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/default.asp](http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/default.asp)
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### Author:  [@Earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthling)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2001, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-coins-weigh-en-masse/67762/3 "2001-06-06T03:55:49Z")
Check out this interesting [article](http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=201370) from _Fortune_. It says a quarter is 5.7 grams and a penny is 2.5 grams. Don’t know about the other coins, though.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2001, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-coins-weigh-en-masse/67762/4 "2001-06-06T04:14:02Z")
As I recall, the “silver” coins (quarters and dimes) have the same “value density”, as do the “base” coins (nickle and penny). In other words, a dollar’s worth of quarters would weigh the same as a dollar’s worth of dimes, and a dollar in nickles would weigh the same as a dollar in pennies. I think that the Kennedy half-dollars might have had the same “density” as the quarter, hence the silly-looking size, but I’m not certain about that.
A couple of decades ago, the composition (and hence weight) of the penny was changed; I’m not sure if this rule held for the new or old system. Since you’ve probably got a good number of old pennies in there, though, you wouldn’t be able to expect accuracy, anyway.
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### Author:  [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2001, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-coins-weigh-en-masse/67762/5 "2001-06-06T04:51:32Z")
[Here](http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/index.cfm?action=coin_specifications)’s what the US Mint has to say:
Penny: 2.5 grams
Nickel: 5.0 grams
Dime: 2.268 grams
Quarter: 5.670 grams (this may have changed with the state quarters)
Half Dollar: 11.340 grams
Susan B. Anthonay Dollar: 8.1 grams
Sacagawea Dollar: 8.1 grams
Using that as a base, a pound of quarters should be about $20.00, a pound of dimes is about $20.00, a pound of nickels is about $4.55, and a pound of pennies would be about $1.81.
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### Author:  [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2001, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-coins-weigh-en-masse/67762/6 "2001-06-06T04:54:29Z")
Forgot to add that Chronos was on to something:
A pound of dimes, quarters, and even half dollars all have the same value.
As for the pennies and nickels, well, he’s was at least half right. 😃
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2001, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-coins-weigh-en-masse/67762/7 "2001-06-06T05:16:45Z")
Well, that’s pretty interesting. We didn’t know the numbers, but this issue comes up in D&D games, because under the older rules, ten gold coins weighed a pound). Obviously, that’s silly. But we’ve been using the rate of 50 coins per pound for years, and this data seems to validate it, since presumably a gold coin would weigh around as much as a dollar, and at this rate it takes 65 quarters to make a pound, or 46 Sacky-G’s.