Coin washer keeps Westin St. Francis' change shiny (2010)
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!
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#...
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.
I guess you could say this hotel's definitely laundering money :)
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.
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
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.
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.
Couldn't they just get new coins (which would be shiny) from the mint? Would that be more expensive than washing them?
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?
Awful popup videos and ads. Atrocious loading time. Dr;
They are probably damaging rare/valuable coins by washing them... this is a pretty ridiculous idea anyways...
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.