Initially I was disappointed with this model. It did not have an auto start feature – something easy enough to design and basic to the cheaper battery operated ones I’m used to. You have to turn the machine on before dumping the coins in. I had great difficulty turning the machine on because the switch was stuck. I ended up forcing it on before I figured out that the sliding tray must align just right for the switch to work properly. The tray does not align easily due to design tolerances in the cheap molded plastic.

I have never seen a coin sorter that can produce an accurate coin count all the time, including the industrial strength ones at Vegas (watch them recycle the coins until they get the same count twice). Therefore, I opted out of the higher model with 3 rows and a running count readout. Think about it, unless you’re a little kid counting his life savings, why do you need the machine to tell you how much loose change you have? So I bought the 2 row model, thinking that when one tube was full, the machine would somehow know to start filling the 2nd row automatically. Wrong! You have to manually pull the tray forward to start filling the second row. Do not fill the back row 1st because the front row (closest to you as you face the machine) sits higher and the coins will start piling up and fall behind the tubes – one of those take the tubes out and turn the machine upside down experiences. As such, the 2 and 3 row sorter has no advantage over the 1 row sorter. Just let the extra coins fall into the overflow tray, stop the machine, empty the full tube, and dump the extra coins back in.

Another quirk about the 2 row design is that all the tubes in a row move in tandum (e.g., the quarters do not move separately from the dimes, nickels, and pennies). So, for example, if the quarters fill first and you pull the row forward, the other denominations will have only partially filled tubes while the tubes in the back start filling also. I feel like I’m missing something about how this machine is supposed to work.

In spite of the claims, you will not be able to tell if you have one coin extra in the coin tubes because they are not precision cut. The old binary test does the trick – pull the coins out and make 2 equal stacks. If one stack has an extra coin, pull this out before putting the coins back into the tube to be wrapped. Along these lines, forget about putting the premolded wrappers into the tube beforehand. This has never worked and never will. Just use them up, switch to the free folded ones from the bank, and slide the wrapper over the coins after the tube is full. No big deal.

Even though it’s called Fast Sort, it’s slow compared to my cheapie battery operated ones, but I take that to mean slow turning = more torque = no jamming.

In spite of all the negatives, I still think it’s a pretty good machine. I use it every other day, so I need a heavy duty AC operated machine. The other ones I’ve had ate too many batteries and jammed too easily. This machine has never jammed, but on one occasion (see above) some coins fell behind the coin tubes so I had to pull all the tubes out and turn the machine upside down to shake them out.

No machine is perfect, but I don’t think you’ll find a better one for casual home use (but get the 1 row sorter).
Rating: 4 / 5

I have already recovered a third of the cost of this counter by not using Coinstar.
Rating: 3 / 5