Pennies! By Zach Margolis
This is the change that my family and I have found in every year since 2017, and a few friends started contributing in 2022. It's our friendly little competition, and everyone's a winner (and I'm the biggest winner).
Results
Total coins picked up, year-over-year
| Person | Total Coins | Total Value |
|---|---|---|
| ● Zach | 193 | 7.97 USD 1.00 MXP |
| ● Dad | 46 | 12.11 USD |
| ● Noah | 20 | 0.61 USD 0.22 EUR 0.06 GBP |
| ● Mom | 9 | 0.45 USD 10.00 EUR |
Timeline
USD
- Penny
- Nickel
- Dime
- Quarter
- Dollar Bill
- 10 Dollar Bill
EUR
- 2 Euro Cent
- Euro Dime
- 10 Euro
GBP
- One Pence
- Five Pence
MXP
- Mexican Peso
Streaks
A streak is two or more consecutive days of finds.
| Person | Number of streaks | Longest streak |
|---|---|---|
| ● Zach | 8 | 4 days |
By Weekday
Number of coins picked up by weekday
By Coin
| Person | Penny | Nickel | Dime | Quarter | Dollar Bill | 10 Dollar Bill | 2 Euro Cent | Euro Dime | 10 Euro | One Pence | Five Pence | Mexican Peso |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ● Zach | 157 | 5 | 19 | 9 | 2 | 1 | ||||||
| ● Dad | 26 | 7 | 10 | 2 | 1 | |||||||
| ● Noah | 11 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| ● Mom | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Methodology
We take pictures of coins we find on the ground (either in situ or once they've been picked up) and then message the pictures to a group chat with my family. The friends division is people sending me pictures separate from the group chat. Almost all change is fair game, but we don't allow fishing in fountains (deliberately left change).
Each year, I manually scroll through our message history and log the results in a spreadsheet. I lightly process and turn that spreadsheet into a CSV used to power these visualizations. Most of the time we note what coins we find (such as "a scuffed penny" or "a dime and a nickel") but sometimes we forget, so I have to take a guess (a blurry dime and nickel with no reference are hard to tell apart).
Feel free to check out the source on GitHub!