Realcent.org

Hello!
I thought I posted already but cannot find it, I apologize if it is somewhere here and I just haven't found it.

Been reading a little on here for a couple of weeks and started hand sorting pennies found around the house. Pretty soon (about 20 minutes) I knew I needed a better plan!
I wrote to Ryedale, talked to my wife, dug out my loupe-light-and card table and off to the bank we go! WOOO HOOO!


Except, first bank we go to will not deal with coins. Yes thats what they told us. No biggie, 3 other banks in our little town of 5000.
OUR bank was happy to sell us their box of pennies and we can "check back as often as we like", but they will not order any pennies OR nickels for us.
3rd bank we can check and see have what they have on hand, which is about 2 boxes of pennies we have already sorted (GOOD thing we mark the wrappers) but they will not order anything for us.

Now I'm starting to think my new hobby is/was going to be the quickest ever!

4th bank same story, they are all very nice, just will not order in any coins for us.

So obviously I put Mr. Reydale on hold as I can hand sort 3 $25 boxes a day myself and town cannot produce that much I guess. Next closest town is 24 miles and is that same branch that will not deal with coins and us at all. Next is Spokane at about 75 miles away but I don't picture my wife being too pleased at me spending $50 in gas and the day to bring (maybe) some pennies back.

I just read about the fellow in Canada who was saying it must be easier here. Lol

I'm not whining here so please don't take it that way, I can figure something out, I just figured you people ought to have the best ideas out there and if yall wouldn't mind sharing, that would be awesome.

Thank you for your time.

Sammy

Welcome. Sorry you are having a hard time getting coins. Maybe a member would sell you some unsorted boxes or bags? The problem would be the shipping costs to you. Either way, enjoy you stay here!

Deal

Easy solution. Quit your job and move to a metro area. The sort must go on.

I'm in Spokane. Where are you at?

NotAbigDeal, thank you, I thought there may be a way to work with others on here that way, but shipping? Might figure something out.

ed, thought about it, talked to wife about it, thought about something else.

creshka46 sorry about that, I need to fill in my info thingy, we live in beautiful downtown Colville WA!


Sammy

Cool! I have access to as many pennies as I want. PM me if you're interested and lets see if we can make a deal.

I guess I'm that Canadian...

I think it is easier in metropolitan area... Still trying to figure how to get lot of pennies on a regular basis, but having access to maybe 50 banks in a 10 miles radius helps.

I used to think it should be easier with smaller banks because one could develop a proximity relationship but I may have been wrong.

I wish you the best of luck and please keep us informed how it is going for you.

balz, I suppose it may have been you, I wasn't paying much attention (as per usual lol ) but yeah I think my problem here is simply too small of town. The banks have been cool about it, just not very helpful.

creshka46 Thanks for the offer, I will be contacting you through pm. Nice to find somebody else "close" by!

Sammy

Sammy, welcome to realcent. I hope all your sorting dreams come true.

Hey, I was wondering about a way to test the banks in your town that say they won't order coins for you. Perhaps they won't because you just have a personal account. It might be different if you had a business account. So I was wondering...do you know anybody with a business in your town that has a store where they would need coins. (In a town of 5000, you probably know half the population. ) Could you ask a friend who owns such a business to order coins for you? (If you don't mind them learning about your strange, new hobby.)

Then again, it might be that the service fees the banks would have to pay an armored truck company would be so high that it's prohibitive to get coins in large quantities. If so...never mind.

Call the banks that are 24 miles away and ask if you can order the coins. This way they will be ready for pick up when you get there. One of my banks asked me to call ahead from now on and it is great to walk in and have them ready for you.

Welcome!

If you really can't find banks to supply you with coin (which sucks...), you could always just buy sorted copper from members here. It would be a little more costly than doing all the work yourself, but copper cents are selling for around 1.6xface (shipped) right now. Also it's important to consider both ends of the coin processing. You need supply and return banks. If you can't find banks that will order, are these banks possible return banks? If you can order from a bank say 15 miles away and can return in your home town that's wonderful. It helps to consider ways to maximize efficiency. Otherwise, you're just spending a lot of time, energy and money on a hobby you could pay someone else to do for you.

It's just a thought.

Wow thanks for the great responses and ideas, I really appreciate it.

We haven't checked yet about a commercial account because I am trying to do this as simply and cheap (obviously) as possible. However that being said, my wife and I have talked about asking the bank(s) about a business account (lord knows we have had enough of those through out the years) I just assume that the business account would cost more than I would get for the copper cents, especially as I have not even come up with a plan as to what to do with them once I have them. I have been known to get the "cart before the horse" a time or two.

A few people (mostly tellers) ask what the heck I'm doing and I just lean in and quietly say "times are so hard right now in this little town, and job opportunities so scarce that I get the box of pennies to sort out anything over face value, like wheat backs" Then the teller asks "how much?" and I tell her they are worth about 2 to 5 cents each.

By then she is feeling sorry for me (and so am I) and asks "how many wheats or whatever per box do you get"? And I tell her (them) usually about 6 to 9 in a box of 2500

By then I have them, and I am being honest with them, I think they feel a little sorry for me and would do more so. We are JUST getting started, so I think with the help from this forum that we are getting, a little patients, I will read "How to win friends and influence people" again for the umpteenth time and keep asking as many ways as we can.

I have already found one person on this forum that doesn't live too far away and it sounds like making a trip into Spokane once in a while (which I have to do anyway from time to time) might work well also.

Again thanks for the ideas!

Sammy

Hello everyone!

Well at lunch time today, my wonderful wife skipped across the street from her work to the bank (as I said, we live in a small town hahaha) that has been nice enough to provide us with one or two (didn't want tot push it) boxes of cents per week for maybe two weeks. Previously they told her she was welcome to what pennies they have on hand.

When she popped in today they recognized her and asked if she needed a box of pennies and she said "yes please"!

Then,,,wait for it, then my wonderful wife says something to the effect, "if we were to open an account here, even a business account if need be, could we then order pennies in quantity"?

And as the nice man was handing our pennies over to the teller to sell to us,...........she said............."You mean you don't have an account with us"?

Hang on, it just keeps gettin better.

Well my wonderful wife says, "not at the moment" (quick thinking I must say) Teller says "your bank should be able to get you pennies" wife says, "yes they should, but the flatly refuse" BTW "Do you happen to know of a bank that if we were to OPEN a new account at we could get pennies? And LOTS of them? Because if you do, we will.

Teller says to come in on Sat. (wifes day off) open even the most basic account, and they will be happy to order "AS MANY PENNIES AS YOU WANT!"

AND They handed over the $25 box because 1, they have been giving them to us and felt obligated, 2 we told we would see them Sat. And you can bet we will.

Just wanted to share to good news.

Sammy

P.S. I should say I have anger management issues (bipolar) and so TRYING to be smart, I usually stay in the car while my wife does the talking. I'm not joking when I say "my wonderful wife", she really is.

Thanks again!

Sammy,

Just a thought, but I have to clarify on multiple occasions what as many as I want is to tellers and such. Oh boy, some of the faces I get when they say they have as many as I want in the box/vault and I ask for 10k worth just for fun......... To some 10 rolls is way more than any one could possibly ask for/want What sucks is you go along for 6 months getting yourself 200-500.00 a week and bam oops you no longer are a respected customer you cost way more than they can make off of you.....

Scotty

ScottyTX wrote:Sammy,

Just a thought, but I have to clarify on multiple occasions what as many as I want is to tellers and such. Oh boy, some of the faces I get when they say they have as many as I want in the box/vault and I ask for 10k worth just for fun......... To some 10 rolls is way more than any one could possibly ask for/want What sucks is you go along for 6 months getting yourself 200-500.00 a week and bam oops you no longer are a respected customer you cost way more than they can make off of you.....

Scotty

Wife told them in the range of 10 to 12 boxes a week at least, and they said "as many as you want". Yes I'm quite sure we could get it to end quickly literally taking as many as we wanted.

To this date we have probably gone trough 5 boxes and a few misc rolls,so whatever we get will be better than nothing.
Plus we haven't asked the other banks what they will do for us if we were to open an account.

Sammy

My local bank cut me off this week. The COO said they can't be affiliated with illegal activities. I really hope they will continue to be good sports about receiving coin.

Honesty does not work. This is what I do believe now. I tried to open an account with a new bank and told them about the coins I needed and the fact that I am a collector etc. and they refused...

The only strategy that seems to work for me is going from bank to bank and not ordering for weeks with the same banks.

I hope you live in an urban area JobIII and you can find another bank...

JobIII wrote:My local bank cut me off this week. The COO said they can't be affiliated with illegal activities. I really hope they will continue to be good sports about receiving coin.

? Nobody should be affiliated with illegal activities. Did you ask the bank what it was they were/are doing illegal?

Sammy

balz wrote:Honesty does not work. This is what I do believe now. I tried to open an account with a new bank and told them about the coins I needed and the fact that I am a collector etc. and they refused...

The only strategy that seems to work for me is going from bank to bank and not ordering for weeks with the same banks.

I hope you live in an urban area JobIII and you can find another bank...

We have told them what we were doing with the coins when they asked, and we didn't have an account with them. Told them we were searching for any coins over face value.
They didn't care, doesn't come out of their paycheck.
If I have an account with them I will no more tell them what I'm doing with all the pennies than I would tell them what I'm doing with ALL my money. It is absolutely none of their business and honestly I cant imagine why a bank would ever even have the nerve to ASK you what you are doing with all your money.

Here they don't ask too many questions, just didn't have the coins to sell us and not going out of their way to get any more.
But it looks like with an account (obviously with the exception of our current bank) we should be able to get at some more pennies.

Sammy

Having an account definitely helps. But them ordering you coin usually costs them something. Make it worth their while.

Deal

Coolride- welcome to the madness. This hobby of ours is a game of trial and error. When you think you have it figured out and you've made the "right" connections at your banks something throws a wrench into your machine. So...trial and error, and of course, tenacity. Best of luck and God Bless!

Thank you twentybux, really appreciate it.

Boy.. if I had a ton of copper for every bank that told me "as many as you want"

They usually balk when I tell them my standard order is 24 boxes a week. You just keep getting them where you can.. and continually develop new sources. Opened an account at another major bank in my area a couple of weeks ago.. and silly me.. I forgot to put them on the rotation for today.

Welcome to the forum Sammy.. great story.

HoardCopperByTheTon wrote:Boy.. if I had a ton of copper for every bank that told me "as many as you want"

They usually balk when I tell them my standard order is 24 boxes a week. You just keep getting them where you can.. and continually develop new sources. Opened an account at another major bank in my area a couple of weeks ago.. and silly me.. I forgot to put them on the rotation for today.

Welcome to the forum Sammy.. great story.

You don't?

PennyBoy wrote:You don't?

Close.. but it happens a lot. Even when they do give you decent sized weekly orders it never lasts. Either there is a personel change, or your bank gets bought out by another bank and either shut down or the new bank doesn't wanna be your penny provider. So to stay in the game you gotta have multiple sources and be continually on the hunt for new ones. A guy can never have too many pennies.