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I thought it would be interesting to start a new thread about the war stories we experience when going to banks to get coins to look through. I visited a few of our nation's finest (meaning nation's finest places to get silver for face value) today and have a couple of stories.

STORY 1: I went into a mid-size bank today and the teller told me she has a guy who comes by and basically looks through everything they have on a regular basis. She said "He's looking for copper." I replied "You mean pennies?" She said, "No- half dollars. Apparently the older ones are valuable because they have copper in them." And she proceeded to give me three halves which included one of those valuable "copper" ones, a 40%er.

STORY 2: I went info a BofA branch today. I asked for half dollars and the young man said "I know what you are looking for. You're looking for silver." And he proceeded to quickly pull a 1964 quarter out of his pocket. He told me he looks for silver too and had that quarter in his pocket for the last month or so. He went on to describe a 1928 red seal star note bill that he got (might have been a $2 bill, but not sure). I figured this trip would be a waste of time. He gave me $9.50 in halves and I thought I heard a 40%er on the counter with the others as he counted them out. Nope, it was THREE 1964'S. Yes, he counted these all out individually and didn't notice. He had just told me about how he looks for silver and showed me his 1964 quarter, but didn't realize he gave me three 1964 silver halves. Amazing! He was a nice enough guy so about a half hour later I came back, not to give him the 1964's back, but to educate him about what to look for when trying to find silver coins. He figured his quarter was silver because of the shiny look it had. When I told him what I found in the coins he gave me, he replied "Whaaaaaaat?" #priceless

I'm sure there are some GREAT war stories about interactions with tellers. Please add what you have on this thread. There should be some VERY ENTERTAINING STORIES here.

Used to dump rolled halves at Pnc. Tellers definitely didn't like it. About a month in manager calls me in the office and starts grilling me on where do I get these at. I'm a little perturbed so I tell her it's none of her business where I get them at. She tells me I am no longer welcome to bring halves there. Get a letter in the mail a few weeks later my account has been closed and a check for my balance. Fast forward a year or so I figure I'll go online and open another account to utilize other branches. I get a letter in the mail a few weeks later that my account has been closed. Upon calling to investigate I find out I am banned from opening a Pnc account for life.... haha

I sure hope that PNC manager doesn't go to another bank in your area and remember you when you come in.

When I was sorting and dumping I had a routine. I visited a regional bank with a coin counter that processed my cents for free. The machine had to change bags after both $50.00 penny bags were full. The staff hated the machine because it was a Pain in the .... for them. One day I arrived and as I was walking in the assistant manager was putting up an out of order sign. I found out that they watched for me and would put out the sign so I would go somewhere else. I called corporate and complained and they got scolded.

Changechecker wrote:When I was sorting and dumping I had a routine. I visited a regional bank with a coin counter that processed my cents for free. The machine had to change bags after both $50.00 penny bags were full. The staff hated the machine because it was a Pain in the .... for them. One day I arrived and as I was walking in the assistant manager was putting up an out of order sign. I found out that they watched for me and would put out the sign so I would go somewhere else. I called corporate and complained and they got scolded.

Wow- that's interesting!

There is a B&A near my work that I used to go to quite a bit and pick up boxes of cents, nickels and dimes. They almost never had any halves, and when they did, they were marked by another searcher in the area, so I didn't ask about halves or large dollars there any more. I went in one day at lunch, and as usual an employer or manager was in the lobby greeting everyone. When I got to the window, I asked if I could buy some change, and told the girl I'd like a box of nickels and a box of pennies. I gave her the $125 and she gave me the boxes. I also left her a bag of peanut M&Ms, knowing she liked these. As I was about to walk out the door, the manager asked if I collected the larger dollar coins. We chatted for a moment and she told me that someone had brought in over $100 worth of them earlier. Since I didn't have any other money on me, I swapped back the 2 boxes of coins, and took $118 in Ikes. Twenty three of the Ikes were silver 1976'ers.

Lesson learned - ask for everything I like, each time. I brought the manager a big bag of Hersheys Kisses the following week.

I used to go to a close by BB&T to get pennies to search. It always annoyed them. Why, I am not sure. It got to a point where I felt a little uncomfy going in to ask for a box. But to their credit, they always gave me coin. Of course it came with an eye roll and some annoyed sighs. So Christmas season rolls around and next door to the bank is a Starbucks. I went and bought three $5 gift cards to give to the three women who always dealt with me. I go in and ask for each one by name and hand them the gift cards and thank each one of them for all they do for me. Only $5 but all smiles. I have since stopped aggressively penny hunting but I tell you what, I walk in that place and they make sure to say loudly: "Hello Mr. [Silverflake]!" And they always ask how I am doing. Small investment, big payout.

On another note, Recyclersteve - a big fat thanks sent out to you. At a time when the metals markets are a little limp and this site a little less trafficked of late, you are posting threads that are interesting, interactive and down right fun. I appreciate it and I am sure the folks on this site do to from the responses I am seeing to your thought provoking threads. Glad you are a part of us. Keep up the good work.


And keep stacking, folks.

silverflake wrote:
On another note, Recyclersteve - a big fat thanks sent out to you. At a time when the metals markets are a little limp and this site a little less trafficked of late, you are posting threads that are interesting, interactive and down right fun. I appreciate it and I am sure the folks on this site do to from the responses I am seeing to your thought provoking threads. Glad you are a part of us. Keep up the good work.

And keep stacking, folks.

Silverflake, I sincerely appreciate the sentiment!

In my home bank that I was dumping both cents and Halfs. When I slowed down due to low %
MXXXXX said she saw a bunch of war cents go thru the coin counter it was behind the counter, tellers had
to run coins, Could not take rolled coin. She then sold me two bags knowing She would get them back, I found about 10 Steel cents and 30 Copper Wheat's. Did the home made cookies drill, small town they Knew My Wife all was good.

I will give the first 2 stories that come to mind and a bonus non teller story. I have been to a LOT of banks so I could tell quite a few stories.

#1: I go into a smaller bank and find only one teller working, who happened to be a very young girl. I start talking to her and asked her for half dollars. She looked at her tray, looked at me, and said "uh what". I said you know half dollars, and then held up my hands to make a circle, about the size of a half dollar. She still was confused so I told her that they don't really circulate and that if she had any they were most likely just sitting in the vault. She says ok and goes back into the vault. After a few minutes she comes out with a canvas bag, plops it down onto the teller chair, sticks her hand in and grabs a random coin. She holds the coin and says "are these half dollars". I look at the coin and see its a Ben Franklin! I had to stop myself from yelling YES YES YES and calmly said yeah just like that. She says the note says $4XX.XX (I don't remember the exact number) do you want me to count it out? I said no thank you ill just take them all. My thoughts racing about how long the bag had been there, what all was in there, and so on, I couldn't get my cash out fast enough. I paid her for the bag and quickly walked out of the car. I was so excited I decided just to sort the coins right there in the car. Any guesses how many silvers?? Out of the entire bag there was only ONE silver. This teller had magically reached into the bag and pulled out the only silver coin! No 40's or anything!


#2 I went into a small bank and did my normal routine of asking for halves. The nice teller open up her big drawer and pulled out around $60 worth of halves. I said oh nice, but I really am looking for more. She said give me a second and went back into the vault. She came back out with a 3/4th full box of halves that was all customer wrapped rolls! She asked how many I wanted and I told her all of them. She said I can't give you all but I can give you $600 worth. I said ok no problem! She started pulling the rolls out of the box and counting them as we went. At around $300 the bank branch manager walked by, did a double take, walked back and said what the heck are you doing. She told him she was selling some halves to me. He said we arent in the business of handing out coin to strangers, what do you want with them. I give him my whole speech and after half a second of thought he says we are a bank and you can have $50 worth. I pleaded my best and said I really need more then that. After a couple of minutes of back and forth I walked out of the bank with $120 worth of halves. It was about lunch time so I want and got some lunch and decided to open the halves in the car. The rolls were LOADED with silver. Mostly 40's but a lot of 90's as well. Average was 13-15 silvers per roll! I thought holy crap I have to go back. I finished my lunch and went back to the bank. I walked into the bank and before I could even get to the teller counter the bank manager bee lined towards me and said what in the heck are you doing back here. I was almost to the teller so I walked up to the counter, turned to him and said sir I really really really could use some more halves can you please give me some more. I gave him me speech again and was cut off in the middle. He said "get the hell out of my bank", turned around and literally slammed the door to his office. Sort of in shock I looked at the teller , who wasn't the first one I dealt with and said WOW! She just gave me this look of I have to deal with this every day and then pulled $20 of halves from her drawer. Not knowing how much to push my luck I paid for the $20 of halves and went back to the car. I was excited from earlier so I went ahead and opened both rolls. 1 of out the 2 rolls was SOLID silver! This bank was about 90 minutes from my house and I never did end up going back. I still sometimes wonder about the rest of the rolls.


Bonus: This isn't a teller story, but I find it kind of amusing. I used to live directly across from a bank and right next to a restaurant. Like literally across the street and the front entrance was right there. Obviously this bank saw me a lot and knew me by name. The head teller always saved all the pennies for me so this on particular Saturday morning she had 3 bags for me. I paid her, got the 3 bags, and with 2 in my left hand and 1 in my right hand started carrying them across the street. To get into my house you had to go up three little stairs, unlock the screened in porch, and then go through the main door. I was always very cautious about seeing people carrying canvas bags of money around so as I was walking across the street I saw a car parking right behind my car, to go to the restaurant. I thought oh crap but I was already in the middle of the road so I proceeded to hurry. I went up the three stairs, put the bag from my right hand onto my arm and propped it against my chest. Reached into my pocket for my keys and started to unlock the door. By this time the people from the car were walking right in front of my place. Right as I unlocked the door the weight shifted from the 3rd bag and forced the majority of the coin towards the top. The top of the bag was only secured by a rubber band so over half of the bag poured out all over the steps, in the grass, bounced onto the sidewalk, you get the picture. I looked down, and then looked up to see the 4 people from the car just staring at me in shock. I opened my door, tossed the other bags into the porch, and then began scrambling to pick up all the pennies. The 4 people not knowing what to do just stood there for a minute until one lady said "looks like you have been saving for awhile". I looked at her, chuckled, and said yup my life savings here. Everyone laughed and then they proceeded into the restaurant while I spent the next 15 minutes cleaning up the mess and trying to get them all of the the grass. After I picked them all up I ran the bag into my coin counter and was only 17 cents short. I am not sure if there is still coin in the grass or the bank just shorted the bag!

I've got another bank story to share. I've managed to capture the details from a Word doc I saved years ago...

5/28/04 (Fri.): I was running errands after work on a Friday afternoon to get ready for a trip to a coin show. I had just stopped by my parent’s house to pick something up. I decided to cash a check at a BofA branch near my parents’ house.

So I drove to the bank to cash the check. I happened to be at the window of the merchant teller, a very pleasant young lady. There were a few people in the branch, but it wasn’t as busy as one might expect it to be late on a Friday just before a holiday weekend.

We talked a little as she was getting the approval to cash the check. I decided to ask her if she ever saw any old or unusual coins, since I figured that the merchant teller is likely to handle a lot more in coins and currency than a normal teller would. Now keep in mind that I have asked this same question hundreds of times over the many years that I have gone to banks, grocery stores, the cafeteria at work, etc. Sometimes on slow days I have even asked tellers or cashiers to check with their neighbors and not really found much of anything. Occasionally I might get a single silver dime or a wheat penny, but probably not anything worth more than thirty to forty cents.

So I’ve just asked the teller at BofA if she has any old or unusual coins. And surprisingly she says that she does! Now she tells me that she has a friend in the branch who collects coins and she usually gives them to him. But she said that this time I was in luck. Because he wasn’t able to buy all the coins which she had. She went on to tell me the story of someone well known to the branch who had a safe in a basement. She said there was some kind of flood and the water got on the coins. She said that the coins were dirty due to the flooding.

The coins were all half dollars. She opened the end of one roll and showed me a 40% silver Kennedy half dollar. I asked how many she had, thinking she might have $20 or $30 worth. She said she had $310 worth which really surprised me. I took them all.

While driving home I became very curious about the contents of the rolls, but didn’t want to get too excited. I know the vast majority of Kennedy halves found in change these days do not have any silver in them. Even if every single one were silver, it wouldn’t really change my lifestyle.

Nonetheless, I decided to pull into a parking lot on the way home. I decided to pick two rolls at random and see how many silver halves were in them. I figured two rolls might provide a good sample of the entire 31 rolls. Needless to say, I was disappointed to find that only 2 of 40 coins contained 40% silver. In other words, the whole bunch of coins would make me approximately $9.30 profit with the then current price of silver. Oh well.

When I got home my young daughter and I started going though them. We decided to separate them by year, starting with 1964 and going up to the present. I told her that the coins from 1965-1969 (40% silver) were the good ones and the 1964’s (90% silver) were the best by far. Soon after she shouted “Dad, I found a 1964!”

The first two or three rolls had mostly 40% silver coins (worth about 80 cents each) which was very startling. Also there were a small number of 90% silver coins (worth about $2 each). So things started looking promising.

Then my daughter said, “Here is a 1964. Two in a row! Three in a row!” She was on a roll, double meaning intended, and it was fun to sit with her as she helped me go though the coins.

Of the 620 coins ($310 face value total) I found an amazing 461 (74.35%) which contained silver! Included in the above total were 62 of the 90% silver Kennedy halves from 1964. The other 399 were 40% silver Kennedy halves from 1965-1969.

Here is the final list of what was found by date and mintmark:

1964-P 13 (90% silver)
1964-D 49 (90% silver)
SUBTOTAL 62

1965 34 (40% silver)
1966 49 “
1967 138 “
1968-D 115 “
1969-D 63 “
SUBTOTAL 399 (461 SILVER HALVES)

Actually, to be correct with the facts, the bank included an extra half dollar in the bunch. That is, I paid $310 for $310.50 in face value of halves. In other words one of the rolls had 21 halves in it instead of the customary 20.

The bottom line is that the $310 I spent of these halves could immediately be turned into roughly $510, a profit of about $200. No $200 didn’t change my lifestyle or make me rich. But consider the odds against this happening…

Dang these stories are awesome! Nice going with this thread Recyclersteve. In my experience I have never asked for anything other than pennies at banks. Never had the nerve to ask for half dollars. Maybe I should try.

Well, this is not a teller story but this is the best place for it. It's not even about me. I have been on this site since 2010, hope I haven't posted this in another thread. Time flies. Here goes.

My brother used to be a bartender during summers on Cape Cod and one night this particular bar was loaded with college students. Towards the end of the night as funds were running low and blood alcohol level was running high, a girl comes up to the bar and buys some kind of beverage. She then plunks a wrapped roll of quarters on the counter for payment. My brother doesnt care how you pay as long as you pay so he grabs the quarters. But he's no dummy. He peels back and sees the solid silver edges. Before he takes advantage of this coin treasure he asks her where she got it. She says "From my dads sock drawer....". A pang of guilt came over him as he realized she basically stole these from her dad who was obviously saving. But theres not much he could do, she was drunk, transaction was over and this was her only cash. Done. Yes it turned out to be a solid roll of silver Washingtons. No key dates, all circulated but roughly 7 ounces of silver in hand.

In another interesting scenario he often saw, (again forgive me if i posted this before), the bar was a couple doors down from a strip club. This club would give $2 bills as change when the patrons would buy drinks with the thought that the tips for the ladies would be better. On Sunday mornings older guys would come into the bar after golfing for drink. Often they would pull out $2 bills to pay. And my brother would sting them with "Hey! I know where you were last night!" A few blushed faces and nervous laughs would follow.

Anyhow, keep stacking.

From the archives I found another war story to share:

7/5/07 (Thurs.): Over 10 years ago I went to a Chase bank and was ready to pick up a $500 box of halves they had. The teller told me "this man is a coin collector", which dampened my enthusiasm. I reluctantly decided to take the box and thought it would likely be a huge waste of time.

Nonetheless, I quickly found a 40%er. And another. And another. Not a single 90%er, but I did find a whopping 169 40%ers in the box. So 16.9% of the coins (better than 1 out of 6) was silver!

I kept thinking in my mind how this could have happened. Was he a collector who didn't realize that halves after 1964 had silver in them? Did the teller say "This man WAS a coin collector" (as if he'd passed away). I will never know, but am deeply grateful to him wherever he is...

That reminds me of another story.

One day I went into a small bank branch to find 3 older tellers chatting up a storm. I was the only one in the branch and appeared like that was normal. I walked up to where the three of them were talking and waiting for at least 2 minutes for them to finish their story. Once the story was finally over the three of them looked at me and the 2nd teller said umm can I help you? I told them my story about wanting halves and immediately the third teller snapped back and said WE don't have any half dollars. I continued my story about how they are normally in the vault and finally the first teller said said hold on ill go get them. As the first teller vanished into the vault teller two and three began telling me that they knew what I was doing. "You think we are stupid" said the second teller. We already searched it all for silver said the third teller. Before I could even reply they began chuckling and telling me how I was wasting their time and now I am going to waste my time looking. Shortly after the first teller came back and began counting out the rolls. She only had around $120 worth but I bought them all anyway. Later that day I sorted through the halves and found 1 90% and 27 40%. Clearly they were unaware about the 40%!

That's interesting. We now have three stories here where people appeared to collect silver yet were apparently unaware of 40% silver coins being worth saving. Those three stories: My story number two in the first posting on this thread, my note from yesterday where the teller told me the guy who brought the halves in was a "coin collector" and highroller4321's comment from today. Hmmm...

These stories are goanna make me go to the bank

hobo finds wrote:These stories are goanna make me go to the bank

Somewhere in Tucson a teller will say "There he is!" when you come in and ask if you were feeling sick. To which you will reply "Actually the price of silver has been sick!"

Its fun to reflect back on some of these stories. Here are another one.

I was on a 3 hour drive back from my parents house and decided to get off the highway and hit a few banks on the way home. I stopped at a small bank and did my normal speech about looking for half dollars. The older teller said we have around $300 back but we really want to keep them. Despite my best efforts I couldn't get her to give them to me. I finally told her what I was doing, heck I wasn't coming back to this town, and her eyes lite up. She said well why didn't you just say so, go sit in that chair over there and you can look them right here in the lobby. She said I won't even make you pay for all of them, only the ones you want to keep. The other thing you have to do is show me what you find. I agreed and took the halves and sat in the chair. Before I could even get started another teller brought me over a coffee and donuts. Here I was in the middle of the lobby sitting there eating the doughnut, with the bag of halves between my legs, as other customers came and went from the bank. I finished eating the doughnut and began going through the halves. After several minutes I went back up to the counter and handed the rejects back. All excited most of the tellers wanted to know what I found. I can't remember exactly how much I found, but there was a WL, Franklin, and some 40%. The tellers were all crazy excited about the Franklin because they had never seen one before. I paid them for the coins that I took and they thanked me over and over for showing them. It was quite strange to pick up and dump at the same bank and then get thanked for it.

hobo finds wrote:These stories are goanna make me go to the bank

All of my stories are 8-10 years old.

Those that have been copper sorting at high volume for a while likely have heard the advice to not dump at your source banks. I had regular dump banks and regular sourcing banks. I had a couple of source banks that knew what I was doing and would allow me to swap out all of their sealed penny boxes with my sorted zinc boxes. That way, I could get a couple boxes of unsorted pennies and they didn't deplete their vault. I never asked to do this, they offered it to me when they figured out what I was doing. I also had a few dump banks make the same offer. They wouldn't have room in their vault to take on my pennies, but were glad to take as many as I could swap out leaving their vault the same as before I came in. Again, the common advise is not to dump at a source bank, so I never asked to do this.

There was a regional bank that had a free coin counter in the lobby. A few times I ran into a guy sorting a lot of halves. I knew he was pretty big since I saw his truck in the parking lot with tons of half dollar boxes in the back. (I don't know if they were full or empty.) After a while, these coin counters started breaking down more often. Every branch blamed the "half dollar guy" on breaking their machines. Eventually they all removed the machines, and even then blamed the "half dollar guy". It sucked that supposedly a single person ruined the free coin counters in a large city metropolitan area. But I'm glad they didn't blame it on me for running hundreds of dollars in pennies through their machine at a time! Who knows, maybe they told the "half dollar guy" that the "penny guy" was breaking them all...

Loving the stories

I used to dump at the CU near my house. Mainly just halves. Got called into the managers office. I had dumped on Monday and this was Friday and i was dumping again. She said that the machine wasn't for commercial use and since i had dumped over $5000 that week i could no longer use that machine.

Another time at a different CU in the next town i dumped pennies there. I had $750 in zinc. 3 5 gallon buckets. I dumped 1 bucket and i asked the young girl that were changing the bags if i could dump more. She said if i didn't mind waiting for them to change bags i could dump as much as i wanted. So i dumped $750 in zincs and they were friendly and seemed a little disappointed when i was done. Maybe they enjoyed doing that more than standing behind the counter helping customers.

slickeast wrote:Loving the stories

I used to dump at the CU near my house. Mainly just halves. Got called into the managers office. I had dumped on Monday and this was Friday and i was dumping again. She said that the machine wasn't for commercial use and since i had dumped over $5000 that week i could no longer use that machine.

Another time at a different CU in the next town i dumped pennies there. I had $750 in zinc. 3 5 gallon buckets. I dumped 1 bucket and i asked the young girl that were changing the bags if i could dump more. She said if i didn't mind waiting for them to change bags i could dump as much as i wanted. So i dumped $750 in zincs and they were friendly and seemed a little disappointed when i was done. Maybe they enjoyed doing that more than standing behind the counter helping customers.

Maybe they were polite while you were there. But when you left they may have looked at each other and said "Man I thought he'd NEVER leave."

I have to add one from just today. I got a friendly young guy at a bank who said "I've got $30 in SILVER HALF DOLLARS." At first my heart skipped a beat until I realized how young and gullible he looked. The rolls were open on both ends and it was very easy to tell that they were NOT silver at all. I told him that and he replied "Not even a little bit silver??" To which I replied "Not since the 1960's." I went back and took the rolls just in case there was a silver or two hidden inside. And, of course, I got skunked. Oh well...

CU offered to let me look at their bag of coin counter rejects. In there was a toonie the teller insisted was fake and could not sell me. I'm telling him I would love to have a fake coin - I'll put it in a flap and make sure it never sees circulation. Eventually I persuade him to sell it. Happened to go into a local coin shop later that day and show it to another customer who is a retired coin dealer. He IDs my "fake toonie" as sterling silver, 24k gold plated center from a collector set! Not worth a lot, but worth more than the $2 I paid for it. Like this one but circulated https://m.ebay.com/itm/1999-CANADA-TOON ... cvip-panel

I'm almost wondering if it would be worth searching toonie rolls for these - but it's the old one I've come across. They have been issued various years. The weight and look is different from the regular nickel version, but not significantly different the average person would really notice.

I was back in the same CU last week and bought a 40% US 1/2 and a 50% silver Canadian quarter for Canadian face from that same bag. I also bought a bunch of large Canadian dollars and 4 US dollar coins, also for face Canadian. I obviously need to visit that branch more often having scored silver both times checking the rejects.

JadeDragon wrote:CU offered to let me look at their bag of coin counter rejects. In there was a toonie the teller insisted was fake and could not sell me. I'm telling him I would love to have a fake coin - I'll put it in a flap and make sure it never sees circulation. Eventually I persuade him to sell it. Happened to go into a local coin shop later that day and show it to another customer who is a retired coin dealer. He IDs my "fake toonie" as sterling silver, 24k gold plated center from a collector set! Not worth a lot, but worth more than the $2 I paid for it. Like this one but circulated https://m.ebay.com/itm/1999-CANADA-TOON ... cvip-panel

I'm almost wondering if it would be worth searching toonie rolls for these - but it's the old one I've come across. They have been issued various years. The weight and look is different from the regular nickel version, but not significantly different the average person would really notice.

I was back in the same CU last week and bought a 40% US 1/2 and a 50% silver Canadian quarter for Canadian face from that same bag. I also bought a bunch of large Canadian dollars and 4 US dollar coins, also for face Canadian. I obviously need to visit that branch more often having scored silver both times checking the rejects.

I am jealous. I'd love to find someone that would let me check their rejects. I've asked numerous times at different banks and always gotten the same answer-- "Not just no, but heck no!"