Drug Addict Son Dumps Father's Coin Collection Into Coinstar

This was mentioned in the CoinStar thread. It does deserve its own topic, thank you for posting.

My reaction is still the same...

There are much worse losses than coins with addiction.

:-(

Unfortunately this is not the first time I have seen this type of article. I am so sad for the father and the son - can you imagine Thanksgiving next week?

I know the situation sucks from a collectors point of view but the mainstream media story doesn't add up.

$8,000 in coins net $60 in a Coinstar machine.

Coinstar kicks out silver. They did mention "Authorities have video of Rinaldi at the CoinStar machine and say that many of the coins that were not rejected by the machine because of their silver content have been recovered. Police don't know where the rejected coins ended up."

So either the bulk of the heist was silver which current where abouts are currently unknown or the collection was mainly Wheat Cents and Buffalo's and Statehood Quarters and the $8K was for insurance purposes.

And even a crappy Sentry fire safe would have prevented the theft unless the threat of physical violence was made to open it.

This is such a sad story on so many levels.




Given that we're talking about a son living at home with his dad, I guess that wouldn't have made any difference. Or has the general distrust towards others in the USA also impacted direct family relations now? Over here I know exactly where the safe of my in-laws is, for example, and how to open it in case of an emergency.

I guess the $8000 was merely insurance value, or the man had a few key dates in his collection. If the bulk of the non-silver coins was recovered, and $60 was paid out, then I guess we're mainly talking regular change in the non-silver department. The reject tray must have flooded if there was indeed a lot of silver to be found and $8000 was the average value. Either that, or we're talking about a hardcore fan of the Franklin Mint here.

I think I heard a story like this (maybe this exact one) during dinner today. What a coincidence that I found the thread for it.

I also remember years ago when I was visting my parents a neighbor of my parents told me something that gave me a chill, they said their grand children spent some old silver coins of theirs and these turn out to be very scarce and worth a lot in in the very worst grade.