Reject Tray - Identification, Education, Information, & Help

Banks in urban areas or on major roadways tend to have coin counting machines. Among them include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, TD, PNC, Valley National and many others. Some banks have proprietary machines, where others outsource their counting to CoinStar as a vendor (i.e. they let CoinStar install and manage the machines separately and they send them a credit to their account every time they pick up the coins).

Most reject trays are, as you noted, right up front. This is because many times legitimate coins do not flow through the mechanism correctly and when you put them through for a second or third time they will be accepted.

However, when it comes to coins that are actually true rejects (i.e. don't fit what the machine is looking for; non-current or foreign coinage) I find the following possibilities occur in descending probability:

1) The customer takes their rejects with them.
2) The customer throws the rejects out in a nearby trash bin.
3) The customer leaves the rejects where they are, not even aware they're there.

If you're lucky enough, it's one of the latter two you'll happen across, and that's usually how people make their finds. :-)

Also I've had some luck looking under and into any nooks or crannies in or around coin counting machines. One never knows.

Out of 5 Banks I frequent in the area, none have counting machines anymore. ALL have gone to shipping out bulk coins for counting and you pay for that service unless you have a buisness that requires buld coinage. I asked at Bank of America how do I know that all coins are counted? What becomes of coins that are rejected? What types of coins are Rejected? Bank officers said they have no idea and no way to find out either.

Owassokie-I have found rejects in trash bins. Found a Loonie, covered in something awful but hey its $1CAN! I think I also found some foreign coins in them as well. Cant remember exactly.

If there are TD Banks anywhere near you, they have "Penny Arcades"(most of them) and there is a magnet under the thing you slide the coins into. Theres a handle you have to pull once you get the part out, and there are usually a buck or two in Canadian. Its the silver thing with the holes that the teller always has to pull out when they change the bags.

I look when I walk past. Almost all of the coin machines have an internal reject bin in addition to the stuff that gets kicked out. Some of them have a big magnet in there to catch foreigns. Sometimes the tellers will give you the contents, sometimes they don't. At one of the banks I frequent the tellers told me they spend any coins they find that don't end up in the bin on pop. There's no tried and true way to get that stuff though, often you have to be in the right place at the right time. I've jammed a lot of coin machines in the past few years so sometimes they'll give you the stuff when they open it up if you ask. Just ask a teller - the worst they can say is no.

I've gotten a number of coins and tokens out of the garbage cans next to coin counters too. I won't dive in there, but if the stuff is at the top, I'll swipe it. Never found any silver in the garbage, but I have found a lot of canadian, euro and mexican change in there.

I have on 6 occasions found dimes (5 roosies and 1 merc) in coinstar/bank coin counter reject bins. That's the customer accessible outside ones. Generally I've found them because I happen to be dumping at the time and was in the right place at the right time. You'll find things in those trays more often on Fridays and dimes are going to be the most common silver you'll find because it's the most common silver in circulation and because a rejected quarter is more likely to be picked up by a customer.

Don't go out of your way to look for coinstars to scrounge around in - just go by the ones you'd normally be around. You'll get obsessed with trying to check them everyday in case you missed the big score and end up wasting more in gas and time than you would have found.

I have two kinds where I go. One is like a black hole, you load from the top, it sounds like it's grinding the coins up as it sorts them. It has a little garbage can next to it that produces, last week someone threw a plastic baggy with a quarter left in it.

The newer ones with the digital screen that feeds into the machine with a conveyor belt has an extra secret reject dump box on the inside of the door which they have to open, and they only do if it has an error, since the bags are inside doors on the bottom left and right side of the machine. So, if they open the front door, stand to the right of them, and ask if you can look through that little white bin, you'll see it. Last time I was at one of these I found a Dirham, Euro, and two canadian coins in the garbage can next to the machine. Seem to have better luck with the garbage can near the end of the banking day

I don't find much but it contributes to my world coin collection.

Nice Steve, Since I have a daughter who just turned 5, that would work out well for me too. Now if I can find a bank with coin counting machine, I'll be in business. I'd prefer to do my own coin work anyway because I feel guilty giving those ladies $1500 or $2000 in half dollars. If only I could get that winch of a vault teller (that screwed me) to do my coin, I wouldn't feel guilty at all :)

I don't have any TD banks or any other banks mentioned around me. The BOA's that I've visited send coin elsewhere. Others have coin counting machines in back, but I don't have access.

Owassokie