Homemade Coin Sorter

Intro: Homemade Coin Sorter

Ever look at that big bucket of coins sitting somewhere in your house and think "Boy I wish I could fulfill my wildest dreams with the money from that." And then you think "Rolling all of those coins is going to be the death of me." Well now you don't have to ignore those coins but embrace them with this awesome coin sorter that takes about ten minutes to make!

STEP 1: Step 1: Get Your Supplies Together

You'll only need a few things for this project. 
- Scissors or an X-Acto Knife
-Tape
-Box with lid
-thin cardboard or posterboard
-Pen
-coins to sort

STEP 2: Step 2: Cut Your Dividers Out

This coin sorter works by separating the coins by size. There are 4 dividers with circles cut in them. The first is a quarter shape. All the coins can fit through there. The next is the nickel slot. The quarters can't fit there so they get left behind and all the other coins pass through. Then the nickels cant fit through the penny slot and the pennies can't fit through the dime slot. Pretty simple. Hard to put in words. 
What you need to do now is cut the dividers out. They have to be rectangles with the height and width of a cross section of your box. You'll need four identical rectangles.

STEP 3: Step 3: Trace the Coin Slots

Now you will need to cut the coin slots out of the dividers. Take each coin (Quarter, nickel, dime and penny) and trace each single coin onto a divider three times. So one divider will have 3 quarter slots and another will have 3 nickel slots and so on.  You will have 4 dividers total (Dime isn't shown in the picture)

STEP 4: Step 4: Cut Out the Slots

Cut out the slots you just made with scissors or a craft knife.

STEP 5: Step 5: Line Up the Dividers in the Box

Now what you will need to do is line up the dividers in your box in order. First you set in the quarter slot then tape it in. Next goes nickel then penny then dime. Remember they go in order of size biggest to smallest not by money value. Try to space them as evenly as possible. 

STEP 6: Step 6: Close the Lid and Shake!

After you've taped your dividers securely in your box is now ready to sort! Pour the coins into the starting spot (just before the quarter divider) and close the lid. Shake for about 30 seconds and then open to a fresh pile of sorted coins! Except for a few slip ups(usually pennies getting into the dime section) the sorter is pretty accurate. Enjoy!  

Comments

[KeeganB6]

I remember I made this a couple years ago before I had an Instructables account. Now I can't find it :(

[KeeganB6]

(Except I made mine oput of placstic)

[BigShotUK]

It seems appropriate on so many different levels that separating loose change is being done in a box emblazoned with the name of a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty.

It's a practical tool, social commentary and parable all rolled up in one.

(I imagine the lightweight dividers might be a bit flimsy for larger fistfuls of change. Perhaps some thin plywood or balsa with holes drilled and then glued into place would do the trick there.)

[Penolopy Bulnick]

This is neat! You could use that extra space for the dollar coins or the 50 cent pieces! You don't see them as often anymore, but they do pop up now and then :)

It is nice to have coins organized. I hate digging through my coin jar trying to find the quarters :)

[McNugget Rage]

After building this I noticed you don't need 4 dividers, you only need 3 (Nickels, pennies and dimes). The quarter divider is redundant because the quarters won't fit through the nickel divider anyway. You're just going to be left with an empty space.

I guess the empty space could be useful for pouring in new coins if you're going to keep them inside the box. But if you do this eventually the cardboard will snap from the weight of all the coins in the box.