Find an astronaut and give it to him to throw back to Earth while on a spacewalk. NASA can compute the re-entry path, and you can book a plane trip to wherever it is going to land, and recover the "meteorite". More likely it will land in the ocean (3/4 of earth's surface is ocean), so NASA can work with one of the numismatic deep sea salvage companies to recover the coins after they hit water and fall to the bottom. Then work with a coin conservation house to prepare the coins for sale. The story should make them worth quite a premium.
1. Immobilize the tube with clamps or vise (just enough to prevent movement) - using a straight edge, score the tube lengthwise on opposite sides with an acrylic sheet scoring tool ($5 at Home Depot). 2. Remove the tube from clamps/vise & using a pair of needle nose pliers, grip the bottom 'lip' of the tube and gently break off pieces until the bottom is off. 3. Roll the tube on a protected horizontal surface while applying downward pressure with gloved hands - if the score marks are deep enough, the tube should split into halves with minimal coin damage. * This is just a hypothetical suggestion - if no progress made and coin damage is not an issue, try this extreme method - 100% results guaranteed
The Meghrig tubes were made from a fairly robust material that is quite hard to cut, and the walls are pretty thick. Very difficult to open these.
Not a crazy idea, but a polystyrene coin tube will melt/dissolve and turn into a gooey goo - fishing out the coins and further cleaning them in fresh acetone will be quite a project
Roll the tubes back and forth in a hot frying pan...use tongs. Do not add vegies...J/K about the vegies.
Seems a bit extreme - you might wind up with 200 'pieces of five' instead of the original 40 quarters
I used the score the length of the tube method to open an uncirculated roll of stuck nickels a while back. I tried putting the plastic end in hot water and freezing the roll with no luck. I grabbed my handy Swiss army knife, used the file, and managed to thin the tube enough that a twist of a screwdriver cracked it down the length.
No won't effect the silver as it will the plastic..... thus plastic will shatter after a 5 second dunk.
Once was restoring a motorcycle that had a large dent in the tank. Filled it with water. Two days in the freezer and the tank no longer had a dent..... Perhaps try to get a few drops of water in the tube. Seal it tightly and place it in the freezer. Let the expending frozen water split the plastic.
The coefficient of thermal expansion is far greater for silver than for any polymer that I know of. The coins will shrink more in the freezer than the tube will. If heated instead, the coins will expand more than the tube, making coin Blazers problem even worse.
[QUOTE="Paddy54, post: 3074377, member: 19250"]Liquid nitrogen using tongs incert the tube into a beaker half full of liquid nitrogen. Take out and drop tube on counter top bingo plastic in pieces coins freed.[/QUOTE] Yup . . . That'll work! .
Laughing my Lincoln off! I think the differentiation of temperature is the best also. I would put the tube of quarters in the deep freezer for 1 hr, or in the freezer compartment of refrigerator for 2 hrs. near the end of that time, fill a ceramic cup with boiling water ( oil would be better, but messier). Put a soft cloth on table, put the cold tube in the boiling water top up, wait about 5-10 minutes, replacing the boiling water if possible, take the tube out of the water turn up side down on the soft cloth and hit the bottom with a wood mallet or small block of wood , very gently at first, then a little harder until you decide to go to option 2. 2. Use physical force or sell on ebay as an unopened tube. I am lucky and I have a 4" lapidary saw I can adjust the height by the mm.
So if you used a hair dryer to gently heat the tube, I would think you could warm the tube before enough heat could transfer to the coins inside. Oh well, I'm glad I don't have to try to get coins out of a plastic tube.
I have to change my theory now. Score the tube length wise. Freeze coin tube. Use a small screw driver and twist down the cut, use caution to not damage the reeding. Repeat process until the cut is deep enough. Freezing should make the plastic fragile. Good luck.
Ok, air compressor ideas: You could drill a hole in the bottom and use compressed air to make a quarter cannon. If there's enough room at the top, running the air stream across the opening (like playing a flute) will create a vacuum. Maybe it will have enough pull to dislodge one coin at a time.