The CoinStar rumors are true :)

Weiss

Coinstar Machines (those coin counting machines you find in most grocery stores) apparently have a pretty sophisticated accept/reject mechanism. People have mentioned on this and other forums that you can often find the rejected goodies in the return tray after people have dumped their coins and left. These were just sitting in the return tray all by themselves a few minutes ago.

$.05 Harrah's casino "token" and a 1956-D dime:



I feel almost guilty taking them. I didn't find them with my metal detector, and I didn't even have to pay face for them. What's a coin collector to do but offer them a good home ?

Russ

I check the tray every time I see a machine. So far, I haven't scored a damned thing!

Russ, NCNE

Weiss

Is there ANY ethical dilemma in taking something like this?

The previous owner has been and gone. Neither the store nor CoinStar has paid for or accepted these coins. In fact, just the opposite.

Seems like CoinStar should start keeping these coins. I'd just put a disclaimer on the machine and the touch screen that said "foreign material, including damaged, obsolete, and/or foreign coins, are not accepted and will be collected for disposal" or words to that effect. I doubt most people would even bat an eyelash.

44,000 CoinStar machines. I bet a minimum of one silver coin passes through each machine per week. That's 2.2 million silver coins a year they could bank.

PhillyJoe

Whenever I take my slabbed coins to coinstar they end up getting rejected. I must be doing something wrong.

100proof1957

I think they reject all silver coins !

LanLord

I have found a few silver dimes, old US cents (I am not sure if they were underweight or what) and a bunch of dark side stuff in my local coin star machine.

I did feel a bit bad taking the money, but I figured it is no different than taking coins from a telephone coin return.

JrGMan2004

If the person wasn't smart enough to check the return... it's their fault....

KISHU1

A few weeks ago I found 4 pennies and a nickel. The next week I hit the mother load, $1.51 all in dimes nickels and pennies! And to boot I found a coupon for $3.00 off my order if I use my master charge, in a grocery cart!


I hit the mother load
a few weeks ago

K6AZ

My best score out of the reject tray of a Coinstar machine was a nazi 2 pfennig coin.

kryptonitecomics

Yes I heard the rumors and stopped by a few myself...I didn't find any silver but I did find about a $1.50 in change in the reject tray.

flaminio

I check every CoinStar machine I pass by. I've found a couple silver dimes, lots of nifty foreign stuff, and a fair amount of bus tokens and Chuck E. Cheese tokens.

tjkillian

I always check them and I have silver dimes and other cool coins, including old wheat cents.

Tom

topstuf

Me an my "jimmy bar" have found LOTS of coins in em.

coppercoins

I pulled a Canadian nickel out of one once...that's it.

kamehameha00

<< <i>I check the tray every time I see a machine. So far, I haven't scored a damned thing!

Russ, NCNE >>



Ditto.

xbob

A friend scored big for me. Months ago she went to work (at the food store) one morning and found a little over 500 wheat cents left in the return. Why somebody would leave them is beyond me.

Anyway there was nothing rare but a few semi-keys. The other interesting note is that they were all 1940's or less. Of course, that could have been all that was dumped through, or perhaps it only rejects 40's and under cents? I dunno?

I have also found several silver dimes on different occasions, a euro cent, some Korean coins, and a Namco game token. It seems that early morning or late evening is the best time to check the machine based on my finds.

(If anybody read about the wheats score on the ebay coin forum a few months back, that was me. I stopped posting there after discovering this forum - which is way more active and informative.)

ScarsdaleCoin

If people are already using the machine and paying the % for the service....how bright are they? there is a machine located right next door to a bank that takes the same coins for free......but yes...there could be some interesting items in the reject

rdunnit

I check most of the time I am at the stores that have them around here. At a lot of the banks around here if you don't have an account, then the banks charge a percentage. Even the Bank of America banks around here are getting away from local bank coin machines. When you take change to the local Bank of America here in Wichita, Kansas, they place it in a heavy duty plastic bag, seal it, place your info on it and then send it to the central Bank of America here in Wichita where the amount is counted and credited to your account 3-5 business days later. Bunch of bull if you ask me. Even the central Bank of America does the same thing. You can't just enter the bank and have them count out your change and then receive your payment in cash, they will credit your account 3-5 business days later. My wife and I use this bank and I can't get her to switch. I do know of some banks around here (especially in the smaller surrounding towns) that will count your change for you and pay you in cash. A teller at BOA told me that they started doing this because: the cost of machine repair is expensive and some other bull mahawky. I don't know what everyone else's bank is like but the Bank of America banks around here are doing this.


Robert

ibzman350

Never seen a CoinStar machine


Herb

mrearlygold

Try a Thai Baht coin.


hahaha

Tom

Dockwalliper

JackPot from the CoinStar today....

Red Aluminum NCV token
2 golf-n-games tokens
1 clad quarter
1 clad kennedy half
1 Canadian quarter
1 Canadian Dime
1 1940 wheaty
1 40% silver Kennedy half 1969D
1 silver Rosey 1953D

Lakesammman

Played golf with one of the execs the other day - they are based in Seattle.

He said I can't go through the bins....They have a modified forklift that takes 9000 pound bins to a central facility where all the coins are rolled. No one goes through the coins that are accepted. Like I have the time anyway....

AJ2525

I've checked a few and only once gotten a 1954-D dime.

Once I waited around because the guy feeding the machine had what sounded like a slot machine payoff hitting the reject tray. He fed it all through a couple of times and then noticed me standing around the front of a grocery store trying to look like I belonged there. He grabbed all of his stuff and left. I wonder what he had ....