The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 25, June 20, 2004, Article 15

IS THERE MONEY IN COIN CHANGING?

  Dick Johnson writes: "Is there an E-Sylum reader who has
  an entrepreneurial spirit burning in his numismatic breast?
  Want to start a coin-related business.  Be a Money Changer!

  Buy a number of coin counting machines and offer to set
  these up in banks and credit unions that do not have these.
  Then offer the banks to "service" these machines.  That
  means you have to empty the coin bins and bag the coins
  (or if you are a masochist, to roll them).  The machines
  give paper receipts, people can then deposit that amount
  or ask for paper cash. You will have to reimburse the bank
  for what they pay out, or supply them with any form of
  coin they desire for their counter business.

  Of course, this means you have tens of thousands of dollars
  of coins you can sort through. Offer beginning collectors
  the opportunity to pull out coins they find in these
  numismatically unsorted coins for a fee.  Charge the bank a
  fee. Get Rich! (Albeit slowly!)

  It has been 60 years since I sorted coins from circulation.
  But as a high school student I had the time and a paper route.
  Best of all, rolls of nickels back then were half Buffalos with
  an occasional Liberty head. (This was in the middle of World
  War II, five years after the introduction of the Felix Schlag
  Jefferson design. The variety of coins in circulation was
  interesting then.) Today, like millions of people, I don't even
  bend over to pick up a coin smaller than a quarter.

  Coinstar, whose coin counting machines you have undoubtedly
  seen in supermarkets, have nearly 11,000 of their machines in
  service. They have processed, they say, 550,000 tons of coins
  since they started in 1992.  They charge 8.9% vigorish. Some
  banks will process loose coins without cost, others charge 5%,
  and some the first $100 is free, 5% over that.

  Coin counting does sound profitable. Just ask Coinstar.
  P.S. Coinstar just received this week its 55th patent for its coin
  counting and money payment technology. It had spent $175
  million to develop this technology."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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