Critterhunter
New member
I've been using Coin Star for a long time because I don't have to tumble. I do wash them in a bucket of warm soapy water but don't tumble because I saw a TV show about that company and turns out part of that 9.8 cent fee they charge per dollar is used to sort and clean/polish the clad, unless I heard them wrong about the polishing part of it. Pretty sure I didn't. They then sort by whether it's in good enough shape to put my into circulation or to end up trading the treasury for new coins.
So I figure if they are cleaning/polishing and sorting anyway for that 9.8 cents or whatever, I don't need to be using my tumbler on them. Way I figure then it's worth it to me not to have to tumble my clads by paying that fee.
Only thing I do, besides washing them in a bucket of soapy water, is to sort out any coins that are so badly ate up they might jam the machine, which usually turns out to be some zincs. Most of that stuff will get spit back out the machine, and if it does jam the clerks will unfreeze it real quick, but just the same I don't like the embarrassment of them seeing the dirty looking clads I've been dumping into it, so I make sure to fish out any bad ones before hand these days and use those as spending change when I can.
But recently I happened upon a better idea...My neighbor is always rolling her change from her husband and son, so for Christmas we got her a coin sorter that sticks them into rolls by type and automatically levels it off to the right coin amount for each roll. Really sweet setup. I shopped around at the office supply stores and various chains, comparing best prices and features. Many of them lacked one thing or the other, such as many ran on batteries which I didn't like instead of plugging into the wall. Turns out Sprawlmart had the best one feature and price wise, and it'll even sort out dollar coins too. It handles handfuls at a time so it's fast and was only around $26 (the biggest model they had).
Here's a pic of the thing. It pretty much looks like the same one but I think the one we got her is all black and it does plug into the wall. Got to be the same company but I couldn't find one exactly the same color and that didn't run on batteries in this model online at Sprawlmart for some reason...
[attachment 256347 51fTC6MIu3L__SL500_AA300_.jpg]
I like the darn thing so much after watching my neighbor use it as a handy time saver that I'm going to pick one up myself for my detected clads. That'll save me the 10 cent fee on using Coinstar, and also there still won't be any need to tumble. I'll just wash, let the machine sort them into rolls, and head up to the bank.
You can either use standard pre-formed coin rolls meant for coin sorters that are cheap and found at most stores, or you can just dump the sorted coins that fall into the plastic tubes not using pre-formed coins rolls right into standard bank coin rolls which are free. Even without the pre-formed rolls stuck in the plastic tubes, the machine still puts the proper amount of coins into each coin type tube for a roll. The machine is slanted backwards so once a tube is filled to proper level any excess coins fall into a drawer at the back of the machine. I'm pretty shocked at how many coins it can handle being dumped in at one time. Forget the exact # but it's a good big hanfull at a time.
One tip she figured out- Don't keep stopping the machine every time a roll fills up. Instead, just keep dumping your mix of coins in until all the rolls are filled. Once that happens, empty the rolls, take the excess coins out of the holding place in the back where they fall, and start dumping them all in again. She kept trying to stop it for each roll filled as they happened, until she realized that was costing her time rather than saving it. Far easier to just dump a good mix of all coins in and keep going until every roll is filled.
So I figure if they are cleaning/polishing and sorting anyway for that 9.8 cents or whatever, I don't need to be using my tumbler on them. Way I figure then it's worth it to me not to have to tumble my clads by paying that fee.
Only thing I do, besides washing them in a bucket of soapy water, is to sort out any coins that are so badly ate up they might jam the machine, which usually turns out to be some zincs. Most of that stuff will get spit back out the machine, and if it does jam the clerks will unfreeze it real quick, but just the same I don't like the embarrassment of them seeing the dirty looking clads I've been dumping into it, so I make sure to fish out any bad ones before hand these days and use those as spending change when I can.
But recently I happened upon a better idea...My neighbor is always rolling her change from her husband and son, so for Christmas we got her a coin sorter that sticks them into rolls by type and automatically levels it off to the right coin amount for each roll. Really sweet setup. I shopped around at the office supply stores and various chains, comparing best prices and features. Many of them lacked one thing or the other, such as many ran on batteries which I didn't like instead of plugging into the wall. Turns out Sprawlmart had the best one feature and price wise, and it'll even sort out dollar coins too. It handles handfuls at a time so it's fast and was only around $26 (the biggest model they had).
Here's a pic of the thing. It pretty much looks like the same one but I think the one we got her is all black and it does plug into the wall. Got to be the same company but I couldn't find one exactly the same color and that didn't run on batteries in this model online at Sprawlmart for some reason...
[attachment 256347 51fTC6MIu3L__SL500_AA300_.jpg]
I like the darn thing so much after watching my neighbor use it as a handy time saver that I'm going to pick one up myself for my detected clads. That'll save me the 10 cent fee on using Coinstar, and also there still won't be any need to tumble. I'll just wash, let the machine sort them into rolls, and head up to the bank.
You can either use standard pre-formed coin rolls meant for coin sorters that are cheap and found at most stores, or you can just dump the sorted coins that fall into the plastic tubes not using pre-formed coins rolls right into standard bank coin rolls which are free. Even without the pre-formed rolls stuck in the plastic tubes, the machine still puts the proper amount of coins into each coin type tube for a roll. The machine is slanted backwards so once a tube is filled to proper level any excess coins fall into a drawer at the back of the machine. I'm pretty shocked at how many coins it can handle being dumped in at one time. Forget the exact # but it's a good big hanfull at a time.
One tip she figured out- Don't keep stopping the machine every time a roll fills up. Instead, just keep dumping your mix of coins in until all the rolls are filled. Once that happens, empty the rolls, take the excess coins out of the holding place in the back where they fall, and start dumping them all in again. She kept trying to stop it for each roll filled as they happened, until she realized that was costing her time rather than saving it. Far easier to just dump a good mix of all coins in and keep going until every roll is filled.
