*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***There's many Capital One branches in my area. I used to do this a lot more when they were Chevy Chase Bank. I would stick my hand as far as it could go (which wasn't very far) and snatch out whatever coins I could reach. Now here's the thing. All of the machines appear to have some sort of failing mechanism. I think this because on a few occasions, I've found substantial denominations of the same coin on one side of the machine. The very first time I tried this, I found $5.36 in change and almost all of it was in dimes. Another time, I found almost all quarters. Here's a few of my grand totals that I remember I've found from various branches:
$7.72 (There was a large load of coins in arms reach. There were more, but were too far to reach)
$9.00 (At a different branch, but during an earlier attempt at the same branch, I found my first 1943 steel penny underneath.
$4.50 (This one was unique for the fact that it was all quarters and they were in the reject slot for some strange reason).
$7.57 (I think $5 of it was in those current "golden" dollars).
$1.25
$2.03
$5.73 (These were also in the reject slot, but at a different location than the one with the $4.50 in quarters). Another time when I was using the coin machine at Capital One, there were some coins inside of a trash can next to the machine. The trash can was very small and it was just the coins inside. It was mostly a mix of random foreign coins, but when I looked, I saw the back of a steel cent. I ended up finding three steel cents altogether!
Last October at a Super Fresh grocery store when they were going out of business, They pushed the CoinStar machine away from the wall for some reason, and there was a large cache of coins. I took whatever I could and tried to be careful not to be caught. I ended up getting around $12 on two trips and I found a 1956 silver quarter, a 1957 silver dime and a 1957
Wheat cent. Also at other CoinStar's, I've tried to stick my hand under the machine to find any coins, but I rarely find anything and it's really dirty under there. I have found a silver dime here and there doing this method. When I did a search on CoinStar on this forum, I read that silver coins apparently are rejected.
At fast food joints, I've picked up whatever coins are on the floor at the window. Usually it's pennies, but I've found a few quarters and dimes. Once I found a 1964 quarter at a McDonalds window. Also at some drive thrus in between the two windows, there's usually like a grassy area with some bushes and dirt and whatnot. If there's a really long line at the drive thru, I've got out of the car and taken whatever coins I see. Almost always it's just pennies. It seems that when people are waiting in their car, they just toss their pennies out the window which is pretty stupid to be honest. Many coins are really dirty and greasy, so once I park the car, I walk inside the joints and try to wash the coins and my hands.
Posted 03/27/2011 9:33 pm
