Holy Grail

[Diggin4copper]

I made sure that I told both branches that give me bags that I would not bring them back there... they both seemed to like that idea..

My bag pick ups cut me off this week. I had been returning everything i got from them the next week and taking all the fresh ones. The issue seemed to be car wash and other coin businesses were using the sorter in the lobby for business uses. But apparently me and my weekly $250 -$600 zinc return were not part of the issue???? They said i couldnt even buy them anymore and return somewhere else. I stopped my rolled orders cause those were my dump banks. Oh yea, they left me stuck with over $500 face zincs also!! (well kinda stuck me, well you know what i mean) Trying to figure out where to dump before i figure where to get more. Maybe its time to buy the rolling machine??

You broke the cardinal rule of searching... never dump at a pickup bank..

[reddirtcoins]

So is that never dump at the pickup bank or Branch? I pickup at the main branch but never dump there. The location by my house will not sell me bags so I dump there. Same Credit Union just different location.

[adagirl]

10 K is a big investment that would take a long time to recoup just the cost. Another issue would be maintenance on the machine, if it breaks down, or some drunk dude kicks and damages it for example. Is there lease option any better? In a Walmart or other high traffic area, the initial investment would be returned much quicker of course, but securing a site like that might be quite difficult.

[Diggin4copper]

So is that never dump at the pickup bank or Branch? I pickup at the main branch but never dump there. The location by my house will not sell me bags so I dump there. Same Credit Union just different location.

Different branch is OK, except for two instances..
1) Gotta watch out for the roving tellers... they will rat you out
2) Gotta watch out for banks that redistribute coin amoung themselves.. you dont want to resort your dumps..

[reddirtcoins]

I started to think HEY, why not open a location with just machines and get the word out... Kind of like the check cashing place buy only for coins. Currently I don't really have an issue picking up as many bags as I need... It's just dumping them. What I suggest is to call the main office for each bank and flat out ask them about what the machine policy is as in, can you buy them. When I did that they main office informed me it was at the branch managers discretion. So now I am going around to each branch. Also I ask about $ allowed to dump. I found one bank (First Fidelity) that takes as much as you can bring in for $0 fee. All they ask is that you call first so they can be ready.
But, I still would like my own machines... !! lol
Also I stop by everyday now. Mon-Wed-Fri which are pickup days so I tell them I will be out on Tues-Thurs-Sat and please hold for me. Every so often I score on the Brinks pickup days. I'm up to about 12 bags a week at one location.
OH!, another thing. I found coinage goes way up just before a holiday so I asked my main branch to hold ALL bags until july 2nd... call me greedy but I was the first one ever to pick up pennies so I am due.

[pennyprospector]

In my area I found no real pattern as to what banks would sell the bags. (big, small, CU, Etc.)
It just came down to the personality of the people.
I would buy the loose change brought into the lobby by customers that they were going to send back with the brinks truck .
I only told them that my daughter has a coin collection and we sort pennies for the fun ... all you are looking for is them to sell you 1 bag... after that you will be able to buy abother bag the next week... soon they will tell you when the best day to visit to get more coins (probably the day b4 brinks comes... but if you ask this question every bank goes into melt down!) also after they trust you and like you they normally have friends at other banks and other branches, it is much easier to walk in and say "brenda from chase does this for me I'm wondering if you would be willing to as well?"
I had 6-7 banks I would go to every week some could give 1 bag a week some can handle 8-15 bags a week... (You do get a lot of looks wheeling out 15 bags of pennies on a metal cart! lol)
at some point you will be asked how you sort that many coins... my answer was "with as few wheat pennies that are in circulation I found a guy that makes a machine that sorts out the new from the old... my daughter loves it!" the thing is that they can sell to anyone they choose to but they would rather sell to a collector or a man & his kid than to a guy that is strip mining... it shouldnt matter to them but im convinced it does!
YOUR BIGGEST PROBLEM IS NOT GETTING BAGS... it will be to find a dump bank! Even if the bank is willing to sell them, they will not do it long if the change teller has to handle the bag twice! (plus it increases your odds of getting your own bag back) THIS IS WERE I WAS LUCKY... I had a local bank that already knew me that told me that if I got an accurate counting machine they would give me a pile of thier bank bags already serialized that I could count back to $50 then return (I was responsible for any charge backs for errors... of course this never happened) so I could retun all bags the morning b4 brinks showed up.. they did not want to store that volume of pennies & did not want to count that many. the only down side is that this bank was built on a hill and had 14 stairs I had to climb over and over dragging 2-4 bags at a time.
Hope this helps
PP

[reddirtcoins]

Another thing I found out about my Credit Union is that they do not deal with Business customers. The supervisor I talked to said to go to a "bank" not a credit union. They deal with coins as where the credit union does not. For now I have a few credit unions that will allow me to pick up from the coin machine where a few hate to even see me walk in the door.
This weekend for me was slow. Only 4 bags of pennies and 1 bag of nickles.

[Red King]

Problem solved get your own CoinMax it is 50 times faster than Coinstar and are made by Cummins-Allison they rock!!!! You can see them at http://www.cumminsallison.com/coin/self_service_coin.htm put them in the right place " a place with cheep beer ect." pay the person with the store the percentage fee that the counter charges for the rent space and for changing out the bags for you. And you get all that copper!!!!!!!!!!!!Maybe silver,.999 Ect. Also you could use it to bag your own zinc to take to the bank. I would think they the bank would take them for deposit because it part of your Coinmax business. Also if you had a fee on it you would get more copper as we know zinc dumpers do not pay fees.

That actually seems like a cool idea, and I have thought heavily about it in the past. After all, why go from bank to bank, when the coins can come to you? In addition, CoinStar can't occupy every single commercial building in the city, right? Plus, all I would have to do is lower the % fee to somthing like 6%, and within a few weeks, I'll be everyone's preferred choice. Then, I could add more machines (if I were lucky, a few CoinStars would be removed, and I could replace them...)

However, the implications make it quite inhibative. Altogether, for the model, rent, bags, etc. I would estimate around 20K investment. Then, there is maintainence (cost of repair, plus lost opportunity while the repair is going on, etc.)

Then, there is the problem where just to break even, I would have to have to bring in $333K in coins. When dealing with mostly pennies and nickels, that could take over a year with just one machine.

All in all, it's a great idea for someone with at least 30K to invest. I would probably do it if i had that kind of coin (no pun intended). Great thinking