Why I like coinstar machines

jhuberdude

They seem to reject silver. I always look in the reject bin for duh, rejects. One time I found a little black coin, turned out to be a dime. Hit silver again today and found a 1952 dime.
Nothing very special, but silver is silver.
John

Numismanic

I was cashing in some old change and the machine jammed, so the store manager came over and opened it up and there was a 1922 Peace dollar in it. I told him it was worth around six dollars and he stuck it in his pocket and smiled as he walked away.

Don

cladking

Coinstar is very important in mixing modern coinage and increasing its velocity. The
clads always had fairly good velocity in the early days since they still represented real
money. Recent years have seen their value erode to the point that people were not as
motivated to get them to the bank and back into circulation. The Coinstar machines
have facilitated this movement and caused significant drops in the availability of the
higher grade coins. This is critical to creating a climate where people are actually willing
to put some effort into finding the nicer coins.

It also serves to hold down mintages of new coins (1996 to date) which serves to make
some of them more interesting. The higher velocity contributes to a great deal more
wear which really improves the look of the poorly made examples.

GoldCoinLover

A coinstar machine? What is that? Never heard of one. Are they like vending machines for coins?

robertpr

Coinstar:

A company, and the name of their machines. What they do is allow people to dump unsorted change into them. The machine sorts and counts the change, takes a small amout of it as a fee (about 9¢ per $1.00 in change, I believe) and spits out a ticket with a face value of the amount of change dumped in less the fee. The machines are usually located in grocery stores and the stores agree to redeem the tickets at the registers for either that amount taken off their grocery bill or for cash.

The customer gets to rid themselves of all the change in their big change jar or whatever and get dollar bills in return, without having to sort it out and beg their bank to accept it.

The store gets fees from Coinstar for having their machine in the stores and for agreeing to cash in the tickets the machine produces.

The Coinstar company gets the 9% (or whatever it is these days) that the machine keeps from all the change it redeems.

Kriek

Coinstar machines are now a necessity for my change.

Tootawl

I went out and bought an electric coin sorter last year. For the amount of change I keep, it's worth it. There isn't a Coinstar inthe entire county.

robertpr

Many banks no longer accept rolled coins.

jhar

I saw one of these when I was on a business trip to Atlanta a couple of years ago. I quickly checked the reject bin as soon as I saw it...No Dice!! There aren't any in Dothan, AL as yet.

fishcooker

Way, way, back.... like in the late 1990's, you could go to a bank and they had a counting machine. Today they charge you to deposit rolls.

I put pennies and nickels in Coinstar, while everything else buys gasoline.

MassFullStepper

While I shudder to think just what kinds of GOODIES the numismatically challenged are dumping into those machines on a daily basis, it works for me. After each day, I empty my pockets (which are pretty much empty anyway) and sort quarters and put them aside...the nickels and dimes are put into stacks (50 cent stacks for nickels, $1 for dimes) and the cents go into an old beer pitcher. With a quick glance, I can see what I have accumulated in nick/dimes, and by weight, can guesstimate how much moe in cents. Quarters go to gas (like fishcooker), coffee, morning paper, etc etc. The rest goes to pay for purchases made on ebay....dump 'em in the Coinstar machine, go to the customer service counter and get a money order for the amount needed. Mind you, I am not going to be able to buy an 1804 dollar, but it allows me to pick up some neat coins without tapping my Paypal acct, or putting them on a CC, or writing a check. It's ALMOST like someone else paying for my purchases (usually it goes to those coins I snipe while checking through the 'Going, going, gone' section late at night as I have severe insomnia).


MFS

oldcameoproofsguy

I had a Lincoln cent rejected by a coinstar machine. It had really significant finning, caused by too much pressure being put on the planchet forcing it to squeeze between the die and the hub. Notice the comparison to a normal cent in the side shot.

RegistryCoin

Worked for a casino for years just to get into the cage as a coin counter, but to no avail. Closest I got was the coffee shop and making beds and security ....
Not much good change to look through there.

Deadhorse

My bank has a coinstar at each location and they are free for customers. Whenever I'm there and someone is dumping a load into the machine I always check to see if they are getting rejects and offer to buy them at face depending on what is in the reject bin. Every so often I'll get a few bucks at face and it seems like it's almost always an elderly man or couple. If I had the time I think I could do well just hanging around the lobby of the largest branch here in Houston. I've talked to the guard a few times and he has told me stories of times when I sure wish I were there.

Can you imagine..............people walking away angry because they couldn't get a face value ticket for their old mayonase jar of Mercury dimes.

pontiacinf

ahhhhhhhhhhh...I do the same thing jhuber...but im getting bad cause if I go into stop n shop n someone is excahnging coins I get ansey cause I cant look in the shoot...Ive found countless silver in those things, no one really bothers to look in the shoot

Kriek

Coinstar Machine Locator

Cameonut

First of all, this is my first post, so please indulge me while I learn about the boards.

Second, lots of good input on this thread, but I have a couple of comments:

1) My Credit Union has a coin sorter/counter and they count your bulk coins for free if you deposit them in your account. They always give you the rejects back without looking at them.
2) Be careful about paying face value for rejects. Up here in Michigan, we have lots of Canadian coins circulating. The pennies and nickels typically do not get rejected, but the dimes and quarters always are rejected. At the current exchange rate, you could lose 30% by offerig face value.

Cameonut

Kriek

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I just dumped over 4,000 pennies (with a couple of dimes and nickels) into a Coinstar machine and walked away with $41.00! The fee was $3.28, about 8¢ on the dollar. I just put the rejects back into the machine at the very last and they were accepted.