1200 pounds of coin up for bid.

[teklord]

Here in Florida the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority is selling off 66 bags of coin rejected by their counting machines. Dirty and bent US coin, foreign coin, tokens, ect. Total of 1200 lb of stuff. Sealed bids due by Dec 29Th. See the article by Dan Tracy in the Orlando Sentinel from Dec 20Th. I wonder if other roadway systems also do this ?

Teklord

 

[MalteseFalcon]

Interesting! Hope it has silver!

 

[BBcardsRI]

Now that would be cool if they did that more locally!

I would like to see pictures and read stories from the people who buy those bags... would be awesome to see what they got and how they made out. Would be nice to know what they paid too! =)

~Dave

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

Teklord, If i was you I would put in a bid. If I was closer I would try to get it. Just the thrill of searching them would be awesome. If anyone finds out what it sells for let me know.
Thanks,
Jason

 

[mistergee]

that sounds cool...hope someone here gives it a shot

 

[jrf30]

With enough begging, I bet you could somehow get to SEE that hoard before the bids were due. Maybe not go through it, but at least see the outside of it. I'd sure work on that approach if I were in the area.

I think most are foriegn coins, which are tough to resell and could make this purchase a losing properosition. But, if enough silver were in the pile then even with the losses for foreign coins youc ould come out okay. PLus it would be FUN. Hey, when I play golf I pay to play, and I don't think about what I am getting back out. It only costs. Never a return. So, if this were all foreign and low valued, it would stilll be worth it just for the fun of it. :-)

 

[coolpix9]

All kidding aside, what do guys think this pile will bring ?

Is it crazy to think someone might bid 50 cents a pound ? More maybe ?

I would love to take a road trip but this seems insane. I know today was the last day to inspect them.

What do you think ? Jim

 

[GPURS]

I suppose it would be a good idea to research the type of machines that they use in order to know whether they actually would reject silver. But with 1200 pounds of "stuff", I'm sure that at least some foreign silver is in there. I'd pay $600 to take a look. Hope we can find out what happens to the 66 bags of coins.. Good luck, Gpurs..

 

[rsc]

Last time I tried to sell some foreign coins, the local dealer quoted my $1/lb. Down from $3/lb 2 years ago.
I am sure that sale will go high.
Nothing wrong with bent coins that a good hammer would not fix. HH Gayle

 

[Diver_Down]

Anyone have a link to the story or the office to submit bids?

 

[Shake-N-Bake]

Anyone have a link to the story or the office to submit bids?

If you get it will you sell me a bag. LOL!!!

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-coins2008dec20,0,2295041.story

Jason

 

[scrounger d detector collector]

im surprised to see this in the paper. i tried to do this many years ago in illinois tollway. i did actualy get to go see the coins. after MANY MANY PHONE CALLS.STALLING AND HEMHAWING BY THE TOLL AUTH. escorted by guards and all of course. turns out it was all bought by a large company. NOTICE HOW ITS SEALED BID NOT AN AUCTION. SEALED BID IS LOVED BY GOVT AGENCIES,BECAUSE IT ALLOWS THEM TO PLAY FAVORITES WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY. U can bet that whoever is in charge of this gets a kickback from those that buy it. notice how the coin dealers quoted say its all junk. SURE IT IS. canadian,euros and much other has real value. i wouldnt be surprised if these same dealers that say nothing good is there are the actual buyers. and of course we never find out who the buyer is or what they paid.again im surprise to see in paper.prob required there by law.

 

[BBcardsRI]

scrounger.... so sad... but so true

~Dave

 

[GMan00001]

All it takes a few very nice "rare" rejected coins to pay for the whole lot.

 

[teklord]

I spoke this morning to Robert Johnson, the buyer at the Authority. This is the first year they are doing a sale. It was not publicised. He called a few local coin dealers to shop the idea of selling this batch. They will do these open sales again if this one goes well.
Wish me luck: I just faxed in a bid for $650.00 and had to agree to my wife that we would not wind up with " 66 bags of trash " as a permanent fixture in the garage !
I'm counting on, hoping for, a high percentage of Euro's...

Tek

 

[BBcardsRI]

Very cool Tek!

Nice to see a Tnetter placing a bid! I wish you luck!

At least now that you have been in touch with the guy running it, and have placed a bid, we can get a little bit better of an idea of what it sells for.

~Dave

 

[GPURS]

Way to step up to the plate Teklord!!! Sounds like a reasonable bid to me, and even if there is no fantastic finds, just think of the fun you are buying for $650. Hell, $650 is usually just the cost of the plane ticket to get somewhere to have fun ! Good luck, Gpurs...

 

[coolpix9]

The Price is Right ver. 2.0

I was thinking about $651 as my bid. Not really but I always have hated those people on the price is right who bid a dollar higher.

Good luck with your bid, it sounds like a fun road trip to make. Merry Christmas to All !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Scott (Mich)]

Tek,

I hope you are not low in your bid. If you think of scrap values, currently nickel is over $4 a pound. So if the coins are 25% nickel you have 300lbs of nickel worth $1200. Heck even at a 10% nickel content you have 120lbs of nickel which is worth over $500 and I bet you would make up the rest in copper and other metals, and that is at today's really low scrap prices. Throw in a little silver in the mix and you will have a good buy if you are the high bidder.

I am not sure what most foreign coins would be made up of but I wish you luck in getting them.

 

[GMan00001]

Personally, I think it will go a higher....

Try this simple math exercise....

There are 1200 lbs....1 lb = 2.20462262 kg

so there are 544.3108445 kg

convert that to grams.....544310.8445 grams

now assuming the average coin weight is similar to the average coin weights of US coins (which may or may not be a valid assumption)

The coin weights for 10 circulating US coins (in grams) are
2.5 (zinc penny)
3.11 (copper penny)
5 (nickel)
2.27 (clad dime)
2.5 (silver dime)
6.25 (silver quarter)
5.67 (clad quarter)
12.5 (silver half)
11.34 (clad half)
8.1 (small dollar)

I ignored the Ike dollar as it really doesn't circulate....

The average weight was 5.924 grams

so total weight/average weight would be 544310.8445 grams / 5.924 (grams per coin) = 91,882 coins


Now obviously my average weight could be off, but it is close to a US quarter so it seems reasonable.

Now if you had 91,882 coins and sold them at $0.01 each....that's still $918.82....and I usually see foreign coins at 10/$1 or something like that....which would be $9188.20 (granted there is some profit in there....probably)

I am sure somewhere my assumptions are wrong, but my guess is the bid will be higher as my assessment doesn't take metal content into account at all....

And if someone from TNet does win.....I'd love to see the country/denomination/year breakdown.... lol (You know I'd do it....if only just because)



One other factor...I believe I read some of the coins were bent US coins...doesn't take too many bent quarters to add up quite a bit.

My guess it'll go for between $3,000 and $4,000.....as I suspect someone will take a chance on it or have some way to package foreign coins in random sampling bags for resale at higher prices and pick out the better stuff for themselves.....just a guess on my part though...


Yet another thing to think about....if the distribution of the coins was equal (across the denoms listed above) and all were just bent up US coins...the average value of each coin would be $0.277 putting the total at $25,451.40. Now if only 10% of the coins were bent US coins (same distribution) that still $2545.14 and 80,000 or so foreign coins/tokens too....

Well.....I guess that was more than a simple math exercise....but once I got started I couldn't stop...