In the chinese tradition, it is common to give red envelopes with money inside as gifts. This is especially big on the New Year. Being part of a Chinese family, these envelopes are well known to us.

My father decided to get into the action this year. He came to our house yesterday and told me to come outside with him. In the trunk of his car was a large red bag. He told me to carry it in. It was very heavy and I asked him what was inside. "You'll see." is all he would say.

He told the girls that this was his version of a New Year's red envelope for them. They opened the lid to find it full of quarters. Thousands of quarters...

For years my father has kept the quarters from his daily change. He had drawers with quarters kept neatly in 35mm film canisters. As you may remember, he also collects Victorinox Swiss Army Classic Knives. He now uses the metal boxes from the knives to hold film canister quarters. It's all very tidy and organized in my father's world.

He wants the quarters to go to the girls, so I'll cash them and deposit them into a savings account for the girls. The girls will take a few canisters to the video arcade, but most are going into their college funds.

I don't know how I'm going to cash them, but I'll figure something out.

I wanted to know how much all the quarters added up to, so I did a few quick calculations. I weighed the quarters and they are roughly 68 pounds. 5 quarters weigh 1 oz.

68 pounds * 16 oz/pound = 1,088 oz of quarters

1,088 oz of quarters * 5 quarters/oz = 5,440 quarters

1,088 oz of quarters * $1.25/oz of quarters = $1,360

Holy crap. One thousand, three hundred and sixty dollars in quarters. That's a lot of saving.

Once I get the quarters counted for real, I'll update you all with the actual count.

Posted by michael at January 01, 2006 05:29 PM