OK, enough time has passed for me to post this and feel comfortable doing so. I would also be interested in hearing what everyone else would have done if they found themselves in a similar situation.
Two years ago I had tumbled all my beach clad and brought it to a CoinStar machine. The machine was having a hard time processing all the coins even though I was going slow. I basically had to feed the coins in one at a time and the machine was still jamming up every 10 seconds or so. I eventually had to give up and get a manager because the device was all backed up with my change.
The manager got the key and opened it up. Inside the CoinStar machine is a drum that spins to sort all the coins. This drum was packed with all my beach clad. Needless to say, I was quite embarrased because I thought I was the one who caused the jam by trying to cash in all my cruddy clad, even though I did my best to clean it prior by tumbling.
The manager cleared all the coins from the drum and poured them back into my jar. He then said "Oh... these are what caused the jam... never seen these before... they must be yours"? He then removed three Morgan Dollars from the drum.
The Morgans were small enough for someone to put in the machine, but too big to exit the drum and go to the return bin. They were just spinning on the drum and blocking all the coins inserted from being sorted.
I was a little shocked when he handed me 3 pristine Morgan Dollars. I almost admitted that I wasn't the one who put them in there, but before I could say anything, he said that there was an internal reject bin that was also full and had to be emptied before he could put it back in service.
He then positioned himself between me and the machine very suspiciously and removed a small catch bin from the side of the drum. He took this bin and quickly shuffled it into the back room. It was fairly obvious he didn't want me to see what was in the bin because he covered it with his had and glanced back over his shoulder to make sure I wasn't watching.
A minute later, he returned with the now empty bin and put it back into the machine. He closed the thing up and quickly dashed into the back room again.
I thought again about admitting that I wasn't the person who had put the Morgan Dollars into the CoinStar machine, but his behaviour with the internal reject bin made me suspect that if I turned them over to him, he would have just kept them for himself.
Questions- Would you have admitted that you weren't the person who put the Morgans into the machine? Why do you think the manager was so intent on making sure that I couldn't see the contents of the internal reject bin? Do you think CoinStar sets their machines to divert certain coin types (Gold perhaps?) to the internal reject bin instead of the return tray? Do you think the coins were put into the machine by a kid cashing some of their fathers coin collection or just someone who didn't know what they were?
Dates on the Morgans were 1885, 1887, and 1889