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coretj
Valued Member
United States
436 Posts |
 Posted 02/08/2010 03:00 am
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How hard would it be to have a coinstar "like" machine that would, not only, count the coins but also be able to tell the date, type, and grade of the coins and then sort accordingly? There could also be a display on the screen that would tell you the face value and then the numismatic value of the coins.
It should be able to take all sizes of US coinage.
Turn in for face value would mean a 8% surcharge and numismatic value would mean a 15% surcharge. And you could pick which you wanted.
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Sap
Moderator
Australia
5497 Posts |
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dreamstones
Valued Member
United States
292 Posts |
Posted 02/08/2010 05:49 am
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I agree with Sap. At this point it would be cost prohibitive to build and use this machine. While maybe some hardware and software combination such as those used in facial recognition would be able to identify the type, date, mint mark, and even possibly grade it technically, the eye appeal and luster are often judgment calls...something computers have a notoriously hard time with at this point.
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The Silver Machine
New Member
United States
43 Posts |
Posted 02/08/2010 12:24 pm
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you know whats funny. That is the exact idea that got me into coin roll hunting last year. I called a coin shop and asked the guy if silver still circulated. He said yes but only look in halves. So I thought yea right I'll go do a lil research at a few banks before I start designing my machine. So thanks to that coin guy I scored like 150 40% and like 11 90% on my first day. I even got my teller to help me sort the silver out at the counter. The teller next to us asked "are you looking for silver you wont find any". so I politely hold up a mixed stack of silver and say you mean like these lol. The look on her face was priceless :) anyway since that day I've been hitting banks, going through boxes, and working on my sorting machine. Right now it uses (DR.Evil voice)-> "electromagnetism" to id the coins I want to sort out. Cents through halves. Some of you will know what device is the brains of most sorters. But if you have tried to build your own you know its the hopper and delivery system that's a you know what to incorporate. on a side note when I have my machine set for silver halves it will go through a box in 6 min :)
So back to "our" idea for visually sorting out the coins via a machine. All you need to do is feed one coin at a time under a digital camera, capture the image, flip over the coin and capture the other side. those pics go into photoshop where you can setup a batch process to rotate the images vertical. Then use its or another software to id the date and mint mark. As far as grading I agree with the above posts that it would not work that well. but I think it would have some luck with certain types of errors :)
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coretj
Valued Member
United States
436 Posts |
Posted 02/08/2010 1:53 pm
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Well eye appeal and mint luster are basically reflectivity right? Why not have the computer measure the reflectivity of the coin...
So it would go like this:
Put the coins in the hopper.
Some sort of sorting mechanism would sort the denominations.
Then, each denomination would go on to it's own grading track.
High speed cameras would use a type of facial recognition software to check both sides for dates, MM, errors, and grading(how sharp details are, matched up with grade requirements).
Next,the coin would go under a light with another camera next to it to grade the reflectivity of the coin.
Finally each coin would be put into 1 of 3 large collection bins.
-One Bin would be for coins of face value
-One Bin would be for coins of 2X to 20X face value.
-One bin would be for coins of 21X face value or more.
This would be to replace coinstar machines... If I was doing it for home use (and had the money) I would try to find a way to dump into different bins for each year, MM, denomination, and variety.
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biokemist6
Pillar Of The Community
USA
6068 Posts |
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seal006
Valued Member
United States
177 Posts |
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coretj
Valued Member
United States
436 Posts |
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dreamstones
Valued Member
United States
292 Posts |
Posted 02/09/2010 06:16 am
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I think we all agree the technology for sorting the coins is available but back to the eye appeal...luster-while it may have properties you can set as parameters of software; as a collector I want to look at the coins to judge for myself what is pleasing, don't you? for example: some like toners-some don't. Also for each parameter you want to identify, the price of manufacture goes up. Before long the machine could become cost prohibitive couldn't it?
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coretj
Valued Member
United States
436 Posts |
Posted 02/09/2010 1:30 pm
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Well I'm sure the first machine would be extremely expensive. Developing the hardware and software would take time and money. You would also need to get comparisons for the software to learn how to grade. Then the testing, the UL listing.. there is a lot to go into it.
But after you have a successful prototype and you can break down the process for reproduction... It's cost would be a lot less. The machine would have to have an embedded modem to receive software updates and also to let you know when the bins are getting full (just like coinstar does now)
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coretj
Valued Member
United States
436 Posts |
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RollHunter
Valued Member
United States
144 Posts |
Posted 02/09/2010 11:54 pm
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Sifting silver out of a given denomination is "easy" with a programmable coin comparator. It's the same principle people have been using to separate copper cents from zincolns. I put that in quotes because unless you are are very mechanically inclined, building the feeding mechanism is a difficult task. So sorting the denominations and even the metals is a task that has been solved in various ways (vending machines and coin stars do this all day).
If you were going to set out to develop such a machine, your best bet is to start with the software aspect. You don't need any specialized equipment, just a scanner to start with. In theory a high speed camera would take an image similar to a scan. You can assume that before scanning a given coin you already know the denomination because it's been mechanically sorted and just go from there. There's probably a photoshop filter or other image algorithm that can orient the scan so that the writing is in the proper orientation. Scanning the year and motto should be doable with standard OCR packages. From that you can determine the rough area where the MM should be and use OCR to read that (there will be cases were that doesn't work).
The hard part is determining the grade - software might be able to get you a rough estimation with facial recognition type algorithms, but you won't be able to differentiate between MS62 and MS63 for example or even between AU and MS. Might not even be able to tell much beyond a G or an AU. You should be able to differentiate between coins of the same year with different designs (1909 cent for example). This would require some serious knowledge of image processing though. Presumably if you got that all figured out you could pay someone to design the mechanical aspects of the machine.
So, I think you'd need to be a mechanical engineering expert and an image processing genius to build such a machine and at best you'd be able to sort the silver out, spit out any coins that have interesting date/MM combos and dump all the rejects somewhere for human review. It would also be extremely slow and expensive.
You're probably better off spending all that time roll hunting :)
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Edited by RollHunter - 02/09/2010 11:56 pm |
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