Digital Coin Bank Savings Jar by DE - Automatic Coin Counter Totals all U.S. Coins including Dollars and Half Dollars - Original Style, Clear Jar

This bank looks like a mason jar with grey lid. This jar is not glass, but a plastic jar. It's not a particularly thick jar, somewhere between a 5 gallon jug that you put on a water cooler and a milk jug.

The lid has a spring-loaded sliding bar across the coin slot. The lid measures how far the sliding bar moves and that measurement tells the lid what coin it is. A LCD screen next to the slot keeps track of the coins and adds up the total. If you want to skip this step but still keep a running total, there is a process to do that. Also, you can remove coins and subtract that amount from the running total.

The jars come in different colors (clear, camo, blue, pink, purple, glow-in-the-dark) and two additional shapes (football and pig).

The counter needs two AAA batteries to work. The batteries are not included.

My review:

I found that the sliding bar was more than a little tough to move and the lid was inconsistent. I put $1.43 cents in the bank and my total ended up being $2.23. I put in 5 quarters and had problems with 2 of them. The bar resisted so much that the coin went in partially - enough to register that it was a quarter - and then came back out again. I don't know how the other coins were measured to come up to $2.23 but clearly this lid had to be used very carefully in order to count correctly. I would not recommend this for younger children.

In short, this is a cute concept but not quite there yet.

I rate this 2 stars out of 5.

At the time of this review, this bank cost $17.99 on Amazon.com. Click here to check for current pricing: Digital Coin Bank.

Note: I received a free sample of a digital coin bank so that I could write an honest review.