My Quest to Build a Coin Sorting Machine by Date and Mint

As a coin collector who also tinkers with tech, I’ve always been drawn to the idea of building a machine that sorts coins by date and mint mark. What began as a personal quest to speed up my own treasure hunts quickly revealed unexpected challenges. Let me walk you through what I discovered about whether this dream machine could truly change our hobby or just become another expensive gadget gathering dust.

When Tech Meets Numismatics: The Real Hurdles

Putting together this kind of machine turned out to be trickier than I ever imagined. Through trial and error, I found these are the real sticking points:

• Creating an image library that accounts for every possible wear pattern – you’d need examples showing coins from fresh mint state to slick wear, photographed at every angle
• Teaching software to reliably read dates and mint marks is surprisingly finicky – even slight corrosion or wear can throw off the reading, requiring constant tweaks to your detection settings
• High-speed cameras needed for sorting volume quickly push costs into hobby-unfriendly territory – we’re talking thousands just for decent optics

If you’re itching to try building one yourself, my hard-won advice? Start with a manual hopper feeding just a few coins at a time. Get your recognition logic solid before worrying about speed.

The Money Question: Is This Even Practical?

After tracking every component cost and potential return, I’ll be straight with you – the economics look rough:

• For personal use, that $5,000+ price tag means you’d need to find buckets of key dates or silver just to break even – and that’s before counting coin supply runs
• Selling units faces tough realities – commercial sorting operations don’t care about dates, and while some collectors might pay for Morgan VAM detection, scaling production brings patent headaches
• View this as you would woodworking – a satisfying craft project rather than income stream. The joy’s in making something cool, not profits

From my bench tests, I’d say treat it as a learning experience rather than investment. Crowdfunding might help, but keep expectations grounded.

What This Could Mean For Our Hobby

If we ever crack this nut, here’s how it might reshape our coin hunts:

• While finding key dates faster sounds great, I worry about market saturation – common dates could lose what little premium they have if everyone finds them easily
• Automated detection could help spot errors like doubled dies, but nothing beats human verification – always inspect potential finds under magnification
• Begin with simple parameters: program just a handful of date/mint combos to sort into “keep”, “toss”, and “check me” bins to avoid hardware overload

As someone who loves the thrill of the hunt, I’d suggest using any machine as a helper rather than replacement. That eureka moment when you spot a rarity yourself? That’s why we collect.

Where My Project Stands Today

This journey has been equal parts exhilarating and humbling. While building a functional sorter is absolutely possible, it’s expensive and unlikely to pay for itself soon. To fellow tinkerer-collectors, I say embrace it as a puzzle to solve at your own pace – prototype, adjust, and enjoy each small breakthrough. After all, isn’t the patient pursuit of knowledge what numismatics is really about?