My son, daughter and I went to the supermarket after basketball practice on Tuesday.

My son, always on the prowl for loose change, looks below the self checkout registers as I pay for my groceries. He usually comes up with a quarter, dime or penny for his troubles.

When we leave the supermarket, he always checks the Coinstar machine for change. There are a number of places to look as most people swapping their coins in are sloppy or in a hurry and overlook coins they may have dropped.

My son always checks the tray on top where people drop their coins in. Sometimes he finds an odd penny or two there.

He looks under the Coinstar machine, naturally, and is often rewarded with some coin or another.

But the best place to look is in the Coinstar return tray. Why?

Because rejected coins fall into the return tray and many times, the customer in a hurry leaves their rejects behind.

Certain coins are rejected by Coinstar machines such as dirty, damaged or sticky coins. Foreign coins. Silver and new "gold" dollars i.e. President coins.

And silver coins.

That's right, junk silver coins are rejected by Coinstar machines. I found a 1946 quarter in the reject tray a couple of months ago.

This time, my son found three foreign coins and lo and behold, a beautiful 1964 Eisenhower silver (90%) dime!

So the next time you stop off at the grocers, check out the Coinstar machine.. You never know what you might find!