Does anyone know of a resource I could find that would show me the volume of a value of coins would take up? Like, say, $1,000 in nickels and another $1,000 in dimes?

I have a great idea for a murder scene, but I need to make sure it's plausible first.

Some quick Googling points me to Yahoo answers and tells me...

Dime:
A dime is about 2.25 grams and has a volume of about 340 mm^3.
In a grand, you have ten thousand dimes, which gets you 22.5 kg (almost fifty pounds) and 3,340 cm^3 (3.34 liters, .88 gallons).

Nickel:
A nickel is about 5 grams and 689 mm^3.
In a grand, you have twenty thousand nickels. 100 kg (220 lbs) and 11,780 cm^3 (11.78 liters, 3.11 gallons).

Ah, thank you. Should have thought of that.

Good to know the idea is plausible, then.

ChaCha says, "Approximately 10,500 dimes should be able to fit into a five gallon jug."

Perhaps you can use that as a baseline. $1,000 dollars of dimes in five gallons and nickels would be either a lesser dollar amount for the same volume or require three or four times as much space.

I'm going to guess that the larger volume represents air since dimes can not be stacked as a solid.
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TAZ

That's just raw volume, though, right? The displacement when you drop it in a liquid. Nickels and dimes aren't exactly tessellated, they don't fit together perfectly. There will be significant additional volume for a practical application.

Well, it'll be scattered around a room, so that won't be a problem. I just didn't want to have a cool idea thrown off by a Looney Toons style flood of coins coming out the door.

Oh no, a thousand dollars worth of nickels and dimes is between 10 and 20 thousand coins. It WILL be a Looney Toons style flood of coins.

10-20k is a big bucket. That's no flood.

I hope our victim was ready for a change.

<takes off sunglasses>

YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!