Kurt's Thoughts

I marvel at Coinstar.  I remember the days of having to collect coins and stack them into paper rolls to change them into bills at the bank.  It was such a hassle that some people brought coins home, threw them into bottles or jugs or boxes and forgot about them

I’ve been doing some reorganizing for my mother-in-law would collect coins and stuff them into those paper rolls – 50 pennies, $2 in nickels, $5 in dimes, etc. to turn them into the bank.  Because that’s what you did back in the day when dealing with a lot of coins.

But Coinstar brought automated coin counting to the masses – in grocery and convenience stores, Coinstar machines would count your entire jug of coins in a few minutes and give you back a windfall of unexpected cash.

Since I had these rolls that my mother-in-law had stuffed (in anticipation of someday turning them into the bank) I decided to do the test that I’ve always wondered about: 

“Does Coinstar truly & accurately count coins – or is is gipping us, trimming a coin here, or a coin there, skimming change so to speak to increase profits?”

COINSTAR IS ACCURATE!
I can confidently say that after dumping these “exactly counted” rolls of coins in one-at-a-time and watching Coinstar count the coins – the machine does a 100% accurate count!  It’s really impressive – it never misses a single coin.  I did this for like 15 rolls of coins and it got the exact count on the screen every time, no matter what the coin.

So exchange confidently friends!  Coinstar is legit and it’s not cheating anyone.  And for maximum exchange, always get an eGift card for your coins.  If you select “eGift card” for the value of your coins exchanged, one of two things will happen:

1. The Coinstar machine will give you a voucher for 100% of your coins for the vendor you chose.  I generally choose Amazon since I buy so much stuff there.
   …the key here is that Coinstar won’t charge you a counting service fee of 10%, which is what they usually do.
2. If for some reason the Coinstar machine can’t issue an eGift card for the vendor of your choice at that moment, after you’ve turned in all your coins – be sure to stick around!  The machine will give you a CASH VOUCHER for the full amount of your coins without deducting the 10% service fee.

(One note:  I did discover something interesting:  Generally, Coinstar will also spit out/reject dimes & quarters dated 1964 or before. This is important because these coins are real silver, instead of the metal alloy used today.  These are worth much more than the 10 or 25 cents so once again, Coinstar’s doing us a favor!)