Redeeming coin stashes is of low value
I accumulated a quart jar of US coins, legal tender for all debts public and private.
I turned the coins into paper currency at a “Coinstar” vending machine in a Safeway grocery store.
The Safeway was my third attempt to cash in the coins. Neither a credit union branch nor a Chase Bank branch had a coin sorter. What is this world coming to?
The sign on the machine said I could get cash back, turn the coins’ value into “eGift cards”, or amusingly, purchase Bitcoin. I have no idea what “eGift cards” are, and Bitcoin has limited use for an honest taxpayer and a citizen, so I went with cash back.
The input slot is behind the glass jar in the image above. Directions on the vending machine have you pouring your coins into the tray with the red handle, which has a hinge on the right hand side You lift the red handle, pouring coins into the input slot. The input slot isn’t all that big, I found it easy to jam. It took several minutes to get all the coins to feed into the machine.
The machine rejected a few coins. I cycled them back through the input slot. Ultimately the machine did not recognize a Chinese 1-Yuan piece, a Canadian dime, and a damaged US quarter. I cycled the damaged quarter through several times, because it wasn’t that messed up, but eventually I gave up.
1 quart is 57.75 in3. I had an overflowing jar, I’m going to say I had 60 in3 of coins.
FACT: loose change is approximately $2.18 per cubic inch.
FACT: Coinstar charged me $17.82 to count these coins, 13.65% of my money.
There is no way on earth that it cost Coinstar $17.82 to count the coins. I acknowledge that there’s considerable wear and tear on a vending machine coin counter, but the shell company that owns the vending machines, depreciates them quite rapidly. These coin counting machines are a racket. They have to be immensely profitable.
Coin count distribution
| Value | Count |
|---|---|
| 1 | 440 |
| 5 | 145 |
| 10 | 275 |
| 25 | 349 |
| 50 | 0 |
| 100 | 3 |
Clearly the 3 dollar coins are just a freak of luck. There must be very few 50 cent pieces in circulation.
The distribution does not follow Zipf’s Law at all.
Considering just pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, my jar contained 1209 coins.
By coin count proportion, a single purchase’s change is
440/1209 + 5*(145/1209) + 10*(275/1209) + 25*(349/1209) = 10.45
Apparently, every time I get change it’s about 10 or 11 cents.