Teaching them to fish

[twentybux]

Dropped by one of my source banks today to place an order and to see if the girls (tellers) had any good finds recently. Soon as I walk in the door the head teller asks me the value of halves from the 60's. I pull out my iphone and pull up coinflation to give her melt prices for the day. She informs me that a week ago a church bag had over $10 face value of halves from the 60's. Needless to say she snatched them up for her because in her words, "Why would I let real money lie around here (the bank)". I was proud of her that she had actually been listening to me over the years about funny money and real money. Would I have liked to grab that haul? You bet, however it feels good to help each other. In appreciation for the insight she found me a good looking' '34 buffalo nickel. One more educated in this big dumb world.

[Somnophore]

Personally I would think it's entirely counterproductive to educate tellers but each to their own, I'm not stateside
So can't roll search anyway, although if I were I wouldn't want anyone else taking a piece of an ever shrinking pie.

[Coppercrazy]

I thank my lucky stars that most of the tellers I deal with have no interest in pulling silver,and a few will actually put it aside for me! Also have gotten a couple of old banknotes for face thru them.

[neilgin1]

thats a really good story...well done. You might have saved that girl.

[Morsecode]

The karma you've earned will make up for the lost coinage.

[Know Common Cents]

Still a wise move, TB. You can certainly add her to your network of bank insiders after your ongoing good advice.

Puts you in a position like the Godfather. You may call in your marker in a time of great need. The $270 or so that was diverted into her pockets will likely be a small price at some point in the future when you need a big time favor.

[AGCoinHunter]

Sorry, but cant give you props for educating tellers unless it was someone close to you. Tellers move from branch to branch around here and one educated teller will ruin the whole area eventually. But to each his own. If you feel like its something you should do thats up to you. I will never educate a teller unless they are related to me.

[amalekidad]

I try to educate tellers so that they will continue to order coin for me and or accept my dumps. When they ask, “what are you doing with all of those half dollars?” I tell them that I’m looking for coins to go in my collection. When they ask, “what are the good ones?” I tell them about the NIFC coins. I tell them that I want all of the halves that they get in but I’m looking for a 1987-S and if they find one I will pay them a dollar for it. If it is a really good teller and they are really nice to me I will give them chocolate. That usually gives me a friend for life. That would be their life at that branch as they do move around a lot.

[scrapper2010]

I don't think it's wise to tell any old teller who's clueless about silver any info, but seeing as how they knew that they were worth something I don't see the harm. In fact I ran into something similair yesterday while picking up dimes. I asked the teller if she had any halves and she said "I've got one, but it's clad." She then said that she'd worked at the bank for fourteen months and always searches for silver. She had a '53 quarter stashed away that she found and thought it was worth $1.50 or so. I told her it was worth more like 7.50 or so. So in unique situations I don't think it's a bad thing.

[scrapper2010]

I try to educate tellers so that they will continue to order coin for me and or accept my dumps. When they ask, “what are you doing with all of those half dollars?” I tell them that I’m looking for coins to go in my collection. When they ask, “what are the good ones?” I tell them about the NIFC coins. I tell them that I want all of the halves that they get in but I’m looking for a 1987-S and if they find one I will pay them a dollar for it. If it is a really good teller and they are really nice to me I will give them chocolate. That usually gives me a friend for life. That would be their life at that branch as they do move around a lot.

Yep, that's pretty much what I say when they ask what all the coins are for. If I don't say bus fare then I tell them "rare coins, there's too many too name". Sometimes I wish they would just give me the coins and keep to their own business, but most of the time they're really just kind of curious and trying to make friendly conversation.