Clean Coins

Mr. Holsen with clean, shiny coins                           Brant Ward/The Chronicle

OK, so the story's a couple of years old, but I checked, and this is still going on. In keeping with a decades-old tradition ~ from back when fashionable women wore delicate white gloves as a matter of course ~ the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco employs a man to wash all the coins that end up there before they go back out into circulation. The current coin washer, Rob Holsen, has been on the job more than 20 years, and he estimates that in that time, he's washed about $1.5 million in change (story, slideshow): http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Coin-washer-keeps-Westin-St-Francis-change-shiny-2518445.php