Automated Coin Searching Machine - Group By Date / Mint Mark

[atom12]

I just searched 7,500 pennies to find a 1973s cent to complete my son's penny collection and we're getting into CRH but I really don't have much time to devote to it. I also built a copper culling machine and it was pretty fun and now I'm looking for the next level.

I realized that I can make a machine to search coin rolls. Something where you dump a few boxes of loose coins into the hopper and walk away for a day while everything gets sorted roboticly.

Would it be valuable to have a machine that can:
- sort legible coins into tubes per date and mintmark?
- take a picture of every coin in a tube for archiving and later retrieval
- coins that are nasty or messed up will be put into a "waste" bucket
- ability to add search features, ie... look for batman embossing on 1965 cents...
- I could add more features but this is the general gist...

So if you put in 10,000 pennies. You'll end up with rolls with uniform dates and mint marks plus a database with pictures showing what's in each roll.

Questions ( my son want's a business around coin collecting ):
- Would anyone want to buy a machine like this? If so, what would it be worth?
- Would anyone want this as a service where I'd sort coins for people?
- Would people want a website where they could look at rolls of coins, see pictures of the coins inside, and purchase that roll?

Thanks

 

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[GlenDronach]

This sounds like way more money than it would be worth. Think of the niche market. You can't r&d millions and sell only a few and never make the money back.

 

[Easy]

Yes, I believe people would want it. No idea how you would make a machine thats gonna read and sort mint marks,lol but I love to see. I myself would rather have a machine(comparator) would recognize junk silver like 40% halves and 35% war nickels. Now that would be sweet.

 

[atom12]

This sounds like way more money than it would be worth. Think of the niche market. You can't r&d millions and sell only a few and never make the money back.

I think I could make the first prototype for about $300 to $500. The most expensive part would be a robotic arm if I couldn't find a cheaper way to dump coins into tubes.

 

[Ezkilll]

Consider using Arduino controllers. They can directly control Radio Control servos and several companies make robotic arms build around these. The harder problem is the processing the video to rotate the coin image and pick out the features from worn coins.

I've considered doing this also. It is on my "might be interesting to do some" day list.