Well we opened our new B of A account JUST to get pennies (we told them) and they told us we could order what we wanted. First order they told us "only two boxes a month" but they called back within the hour apologizing telling us again we could order as many pennies as we wanted, once the vault lady knew who we were.
We made our first order of 12 boxes and paid for them when they came in a week later. They were very helpful and let me borrow a cart to wheel the pennies out to the car.
we told them we knew they weren't making any money off of us and we wanted to know how we could make it the easiest on them. So it took a few conversations back and forth but the upshot is, buying all the pennies we want, there is NO problem whatsoever, but they are limited on vault space, so we asked what is the best day to bring the pennies back (or if they even wanted them) and they said (whatever day they ship out) we should bring all ours in the day before (we have them written down, dealing with only 4 banks makes me crazy) so IF they ship out on WED, we just take all our pennies in there on Tue.
But wait, it gets better. My wonderful wife asked them again (must have been the right person this time lol) if they could us bags. Turns out the tellers here HAVE to brake open all the pennies and bag em before they get sent out (told you it is a small town, even the banks don't have coin counters) so my wonderful wife says, "why can't we save your tellers some work and just take the bags home with us"? The lady said hmmm? and went to talk to some one else, pretty soon she came back with a whole arm load of plastic bags (the ones they would fill?) and said "sure, just fill these with $50 FV and deposit as many as you want" (on TUE LOL)>
As it is "linked" to our new bank account there, when it's a little short, or over, they just give or take from our account!
Now this is starting to sound like we might be getting somewhere. Telling them the truth about what we are doing AND asking them how to make it easier on them, also actually makes it easier on us too. Win win.
To Date, we have searched 20 boxes and have 100# of copper plus many wheats (maybe 4#) planchettes, miss or double die, and a few dimes. About 4# pre 96 Canadian and probably 50 king Georges.
One that looks like it never got the copper plate. Several Kennedy facing Lincoln and a few other misc stamps.
Mostly fun. Gives us something to do. It was suppose to be to give me something to do, but of course my wife got bored just rolling up at night what I had sorted during the day. So now she gets in on it. She found a Indian head the other day and she was shaking hahahaha. Now our 23 yo daughter and her boyfriend spend about 3 or 4 nights a week here "helping" sort hahaha.
We really don't mind, gives us all something to do, but we will need to ramp up from our standing orders of 12 boxes at one bank and 6 at another with this much help.
Also we like to look for wide "am"s and such so sorting is still going to be by hand , but now that we can just fill bags up with $50 FV zinks, I would like a automated counter, or hand crank, but those seem to cost quite a bit more, any suggestions on any of my ramblings is appreciated!
Sammy