Coin counting machine kicks out silver!

gecko109

My wife and I recently gathered up all our loose change and decided to cash it in at our local bank. Our bank uses a self service machine and then prints out a receipt as well as kicks out gaming tokens, and foreign coins into a "reject bin". Anyway, after running just over $454 through the machine, I reached down into the reject bin and pulled out, among other oddities, 3 dimes from '64, 1 dime from '62, and a 1942 quarter. That was a total of 65 cents face that the machine THANKFULLY did not accept. I almost couldnt believe it. If I were the designer of a coin counting machine, you better believe it would accept silver coins and have a special seperate bin for them. On a side note, the printed receipt which itemizes how many of each coin was counted listed "old pennies" and "new pennies", I thought that was particulary interesting.

konsole

old and new pennies as in newer or older then '82, or lincolns and indian heads?
I don't really see a generic coin counting machine detecting silver and holding onto it in a separate bin. Coin collecting or profiting from "disposed of" silver is probably not on the mind of the machine designer, machine managing company, or place that the machine resides. I think its still safe to say that 75% of the population arent interested in holding onto a few modern silver coins, 50% think that coins minted now are made of silver, and 90% don't have any idea when silver was stopped being used in business strikes. Most people are pretty clueless about the history of currency. They just know that "I need money to buy this."

I remember talking about coins a bunch of times in the past with people that don't know a whole lot about the subject and atleast a couple times people thought that coins minted now are made of silver. So if you have a good chunk of the population thinking that their coins are made of silver, then that probably makes them assume that silver is so common that the idea of investing in silver never enters their mind. Could be one of the biggest things that keep silver investing from going much higher.

dac076

old and new pennies as in newer or older then '82, or lincolns and indian heads?

It would have to be '82, I would think, since they could be separated by weight. As for designing in a separate silver bin, it probably wouldn't be cost effective given the small amount of silver that's in circulation. It would require additional cost in the machine design and service, as well as handling of the silver coins separately. Right now they don't have to make any distinction between coins except for denomination, although the old/new penny thing is puzzling.

konsole

I can see maybe the machine company employee checking the reject tray for silver or other interesting coins when he/she comes to pick up all the coins. I think its safe to say though that 50% of those employees have no desire to hold onto a coin or two. That or the valuable rejected coins have already been snatched by someone else.

mkman123

I'm surprised the machine doesn't have something built into it that detects silver coins and puts them in a separate area. They could make some money.

Gecko....454 dollars in change.....wow!!!!!