Roll searching: Most dangerous hobby?

Money is one of the dirtiest things we touch in every day life. The average person probably handles at most 100 pennies a week. A roll searcher might handle 5,000. Imagine how many people touched each penny. If a dozen people touch each penny after it leaves the mint, that's 60,000 people that we are exposed to each week via the pennies or nickels or dimes or whatever coins we search. Imagine being in a room with 60,000 people for a week. Even if just one person is sick on the other side of the room, you're inevitably going to get sick.

So, have any of you ever gotten a cold, and you believe roll searching was the cause? I believe I did, about a month ago. I was my hands everytime I take a break, which is usually about every 5-10 rolls, but I still got a cold that I believe was caused by roll searching.

 

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Thats why I'm all for silver to make a comeback in modern coinage...even though I know that will never happen. Silver is naturally anti-bacterial. If only we'd learned the lessons of our past.
Guy~

 

I've never had a problem. I'm very carefull not to touch my face, or anything else after handling the coins. I don't touch anything untill I have washed and germ-exed my hands.

 

You could always soak the coins in Clorox before you search them. ;-)

 

The thing to remember is that the surface of a coin (metal) is not a very hospitable place for life and that most germs die pretty quickly when outside the body. So, I don't think coins are a major concern for contagion.

 

This subject has actually been studied.

Xu J. Moore JE. Millar BC. Ribosomal DNA (rDNA) identification of the culturable bacterial flora on monetary coinage from 17 currencies. Journal of Environmental Health. 67(7):51-5, 2005 Mar.

Researchers cultured the coins from 17 countries. While they did find bacteria on the coins, most were non-pathogenic (non disease causing). The pathogenic ones they did find (mainly staph) are commonly present in the environment. Handling the money therefore would be a danger only to people with open wounds with caretakers who a) did not wash their hands and b) did not wear gloves. There's nothing on coins that would be a risk to healthy people.

There is some evidence that copper and nickel are toxic to bacteria also, so, while I would also love to see silver coins come back, it wouldn't really make much of a difference.

There are many surfaces that are as bad or worse than coins. Computer keyboards (especially in shared environments) are found to have more bacteria than toilet seats. People should wash their hands after handling money before eating, even if it's just normal handling, such as paying for their lunch at the cafeteria.

And as far as hazardous hobbies go, there are many that are FAR more dangerous - motorcycle riding, hang-gliding, technical rock climbing.

There are also many ways to protect yourself. You can wear rubber gloves when handling coins or just wash your hands afterwards.

(I don't play one on television, but I am a medical doctor).

 

Now you have me worried about making casual transactions. This would be a great tv commercial for Visa! Use the card...it may save your health!
Guy~

 

That's exactly right! Speedpass is even better. You don't even have to touch it to the scanning device.

 

Except when you slide your card through that FILTHY card reader. Picking up all the "stuff" from the cards passed through before...... Punching numbers on that scummy keypad, or even using the filthy pen-like thing to sign your name on the card reading machine. Not to mention actually having to touch the door you open to get in the store.

Goofing, of course. If you worry about catching something from coins and currency, then you may as well lock yourself in your house. Many of us are still alive after handling various forms of money for many many decades. If you have any filthy coins or currency, I will give you an address that you can mail them to. I will happily take care of any filthy money you may care to dispose of.......

I hear $100 bills are especially disease laden.....

 

So what are you saying, if if somebody with AIDS doesn't wash their hands after using the bathroom or gets blood on the coin is going contract the disease?. It's my understanding like AgCollector that the germs won't survive long outside of the human body.

I mean if the change you get back is wet with some contaminate, it's probably from the person in front of you at the counter, so you could possibly catch what the person has just by getting bumped as they turn to leave not having even touched the change.

Besides with the millions of coins handled by cashiers daily it doesn't seem to getting all of them sick not saying that a few don't get sick, but there are to many variables that could cause the illness, i.e. somebody sneezing or coughing in front of them without covering their mouth, coworkers being infected, or the chicken in the broaster having salmonella poisoning, delivery people sick, the list goes on and on.

imo maybe your just being a little paranoid, or maybe I'm not as worried as you are, besides if you never get sick how does your immune system when to send out the defenses.


We all could be wearing hazmat suits to go to the store and get change back from the casier, just sounds a little ridiculous to me.dd:

John

 

Silver is actually a better germ fighter. A company is making antibacterial doorknobs out of part silver.

 

I'm not sure who you're addressing your question to, but I'm agreeing with you that contracting an illness from coins is not something people should worry about. However, I do wash my hands after handling them.

Germs vary a lot in terms of how long they can remain alive outside the body. HIV is very fragile and dies very quickly. On the other hand, bacteria can remain viable for years on objects.

 

I get the feeling that some people here believe that I'm worried about contracting the super virus from my pennies. That's far from truth. In fact, I just got finished searching 8 or 9 rolls, and my fingers were blackened. I washed them off, and now I'm about to eat. I know roll searching isn't the most dangerous hobby, if it even has any danger at all (aside from the freak coin counter incidents, of course :thumb. All I was doing was posing a question.

Sorry if it took me a while to reply, but I was busy removing my germ warfare gear to place a wheat cent in my jar.

 

John apparently took to our sarcasm as being literal. My wife works for the CDC as a bio-defense specialist, so I'm kept up to date on all things deadly. If there were serious threats with germs and viruses on coins, we'd all be sick or dead by now, and many casinos would be in big financial trouble. My germophobic statements were meant as lighthearted humor...at best.
Guy~

 

No worries. No problem.

This was a controversy in 1908 when the incuse Indian $2.50 and $5 gold came out; some folks were concerned that the incuse design would harbor germs. Not true.

 

And what about your telephone, when you call in an order for coin/s? Have you looked at the ear piece on your phone lately? I clean mine with a half glass solution of water and five drops of hydrogen peroxide every day!

Clinker

 

Ditto posts about coins being inhospitable to bacteria. Paper money is also bacteriostatic.

 

Captain Tripps

Has anyone read "The Stand" by Stephen King?
Now there was a disease that might wipe us all out by roll searching (and anything else for that matter).

I handled coins and currency for years on a large scale. Bank tellers really handle the sfuff. If you see a sudden turnaround in bank tellers start reading the obits. We may be in trouble at that point!

 

Really a mistake in statistics. Recent studies have proven about the worst place to contact germs and viruses is on the handle of a shopping cart. Washroom doornobs are worse than the toilet seats. Leaning on the place where you unload your groceries at a grocery stores conveyor is also a nasty place. Ever see those little kids wiping thier nose and then slidding their hands on that counter? Ever see kids drolling, picking noses and then handling the shopping cart's handles. Your in a line at the bank and hold the little rails they put up to direct you. So have thousands of others. Many of these are none matallic and hold germs and viruses much longer than any coin will ever hold.
Now the biggies. Shaking hands. Petting animals. Kissing.
If you've ever had Chemotherapy, I've had it 2 times, your system is really run down and so is your immune system. The booklets you get and the lectures you get tell you "DO NOT SHAKE HANDS, DO NOT PET ANIMALS, DO NOT KISS ANYONE". None, I mean NONE, of these say don't handle coins.
As already fairly well stated, matallic objects are not great carriers of germs and viruses.
Further, many Copper coins contain slight sulfates which is a deadly poison to many germs, viruses and all vegatation. Note how many vegatation poinsons contain Copper Sulfate.

 

When was the last time you cleaned your keyboard ? Do you wash your hands after posting on CT?

Computer keyboards harbour up to 3,295 microbes per square inch and computer mice 1,676.
By contrast, the average toilet seat contains 49 microbes per square inch.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3505414.stm