The story comes from a friend who was involved in the project. If you have any specific questions I would be happy to ask them on your behalf.
A quick google search returned a news item posted on the corporate website of Coinstar which claims the machine processes 600 coins per minute. They also have some general information about customer behavior on the page as well. http://www.coinstar.com/us/WebDocs/A3-2-2
I worked at a McDonalds where they had a machine to count the coins in the cash drawers. It was very quick, but not as fast as the larger machine the bank used. This was 25 years ago and I would not imagine they have gotten slower.
It was also quite expensive, but it saved minutes counting down a drawer at the end of a cashier's shift, and probably paid for itself in labor rather quickly (the cashier did not clock out until the drawer was counted).
A quick google search returned a news item posted on the corporate website of Coinstar which claims the machine processes 600 coins per minute. They also have some general information about customer behavior on the page as well. http://www.coinstar.com/us/WebDocs/A3-2-2