My Experiement

[BamaJoe]

Lately I've been seeing more and more of my own mark when sorting boxes. It's looking like alot of what I'm doing is just resorting coins I previously sorted and getting a little silver which has been thrown in the mix here and there. I'm pushing double the number of boxes I've done last year and while the 40% is holding pretty well, I still haven't hit my last year totals with either 64's, Bens or Walkers. No silver commeratives at all this year compared to 7 last year. Not planning on quitting sorting, I enjoy it and am still getting enough to make me happy (over 16 ozs so far this month). I'm just greedy and want more.

So, as I was contemplating how to increase my yield I remembered a conversation I had a while back with a casual acquaintance who works for Brinks. He told me that there were quite a fews pallets of halves sitting there that never move, only sit collecting dust. They don't rotate them at all. As havles come in and they get enough to run thru the machine and roll and box then the new pallet goes to the front of the line. Basically, in accounting terms it is last in/first out, and the older pallets just sit there collecting more dust. This was really brought home last week when the 10 boxes I picked up on the 13th of this month had August 31, 2011 stamped on them. Those halves had sat in there a whole 13 days before going back out.

My problem was that I needed to attempt to slow the number of halves going back so that one of those older, dust covered pallets would be cracked open and hopefully as a result my yield would increase. Then a plan started to form.

As far as I know (and according to every teller I have ever talked to) the branches only send the haves back in when they have enough to fill a $1000 bag. When they have less than that the havles stay in their vaults waiting. So I told myself I just need to load up all the bank vaults with around $800 of halves and let the banks store them for me and hopefully keep them out of the system.


The two banks with the most branches in my area are Wells Fargo and Regions. Together they have around 70 branchs either near me (within 15 miles) or in a area that I'm in fairly often. Last week I've opened an account at each solely for dumping purposes and have now started dumping $700 to $800 in each of their branches with the hope they stay there a while and not get back in the rotation. As a result my normal $1000 dumps at Compass have been cut back and I plan to only use them when I don't have the time
to make the smaller more numerous dumps.

As I has just started this and have only made $3900 in smaller dumps it's too early for any results and it will probably be at least 4 or 5 weeks for the results (if any) to start showing, but consider the numbers. If I dump $800 in 70 different branches that will total $56.000 or 112 boxes. If just 75% of those boxes stay out of circulation for a short while that will still be 84 boxes tucked away in branch vaults. I'm hoping that will be enough to eventually get my hands on some of those nice dust covered boxes.

Then again, I might just be wasting my time, but I figure it's worth the effort. I almost feel sorry for those in the area who concentrate on CWR's. I know from talking to tellers that there are a number of them in the area. They are going to feel that someone has taken a serious dump in their swimming pool.

[shinnosuke]

Great post. Full of insight. I wish you luck with your plan.

[blackrabbit]

You are a sick, sick man.

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

If you spend them on as many of your expenses that you can, they will circulate far longer before they come back to a bank.

I used to spend them on everything, but found it to be very time consuming.

Many people told me they would keep them and not turn them in.

[AGCoinHunter]

I know where I am going to go get my halves now! Thanks BamaJoe.

[fasteddy]

That pallet is a stack of BU 1995 P's . Anyway good luck on hitting it.

[ardorlan]

I think BamaJoe, the best plan of attack is...
Step #1 We map out all the brinks coin vaults and number them 1 to however many coin vaults they have
Step #2 We find a pickup bank that will get coins from brink location 1 and a Rent a Storing location
Step #3 We Pool our money together and Order $200,000 worth of Halves
Step #4 We mark the boxes with a Serial Number
Step #5 We lotto off the boxes, each person gets one box per $500 they put into the pool
Step #6 We see if we exceed our group average if we do then we repeat all the steps above moving onto the next brinks location.
Step #7 We buy all the shinny pants
Step #8 We take over the world

"Muah Muah Muah muah"- Evil Genius Laugh

[68Camaro]

Good idea - hope it works.

[twentybux]

A thinker...good for you! I am very curious how your yield data will change over the next few months. Please keep us posted.

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

I like your thinking BamaJoe. Another easier way to get to the bottom of those piles is in addition to parking them in the all those vaults, step up your buys to get deeper into the stack. Since you have removed the veneer off the top by parking it in all those vaults, the deeper you can buy, the better. If you can scare up an extra $100-200k for a short period of time you should be able to get closer to the bottom of those stacks. Of course once you have sorted all these it will be probably be thin pickings from them on out.

How do you mark your searched halfs? I wonder if any have drifted out this way. I have actually gotten several NIFC halves with R C puched in them. I call them my RealCent halves.

[BamaJoe]

Update.

Have now dropped $10,700 in deposits of less than $1000 in various banks in the area. That's just over 21 boxes that hopefully won't be going back to get rerolled anytime soon.

I am averaging better boxes this week than last, but it's too soon to tell if that is a result of my plan or just a fluke.

[Tourney64]

Another option is find out where your banks dump. Brinks is not the only coin service around.

[mishra142]

This may be a stupid question... but what is the best way to 'mark' coins, just a sharpie and a unique symbol/letter? Or is there a better way? thanks

[BOHICA]

I have actually gotten several NIFC halves with R C puched in them. I call them my RealCent halves.

I found several of those in a casino in BFE, NV last year. Does anyone know what the significance of these stamps?

[Tourney64]

@mishra142 - best way to mark coins is with a thick sharpie. A unique shape, coin location and even sharpie color is what I have done. Don't mark any good looking coins.

[BamaJoe]

This may be a stupid question... but what is the best way to 'mark' coins, just a sharpie and a unique symbol/letter? Or is there a better way? thanks

I just mark a large "J" with a permanent marker on 1 coin out of each roll that I turn back in. First I did it in black, the later green, and now I'm on red. Using the different colors just gives me a rough time period when I marked it.

[knibloe]

Buy at Brinks banks and dump at banks that use Loomis

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

I have actually gotten several NIFC halves with R C puched in them. I call them my RealCent halves.

I found several of those in a casino in BFE, NV last year. Does anyone know what the significance of these stamps?

I just assumed they were somebody's initials that they are punching into the coins as their mark. Must be a west coast sorter since that seems to be where they are popping up.

[cesariojpn]

I have to wonder: why don't you donate some halves to a charity? Get the tax write off.

Of course, how to make the charity keep them out of circulation is another matter.

[Lemon Thrower]

bama joe, you seem to be on to something. a question and a suggestion for you.

wouldn't you have to dump out of the brinks region in order to get to the next pallet? i mean, if you just dump at a competitor bank, they probably turn into brinks or the fed too, so you may take longer to see your old coins but you don't get any closer to the next pallet. but if you dumped in say a city 2 hours away, then your local area would be short of halves and they would have to go to that old pallet.

[dan53]

Bama Joe, I have seen hundreds if not thousands of the "J" mark. I usually find them on a half that has an edge that is close to having a non clad look. The other day, and for the first time, I found a 40% with a "J". (Uh, Uh, I am keeping it) I do alot of business with both Well Fargo and Regions. When I used to get coins from Well Fargo, they came on a Brinks truck with a different box than from Loomis at regions. The box was a "cube". The regions box is flat and longer. This makes me wonder if Regions and Wells Fargo return coins to the same money center. If they don't, that would be knowledge worth knowing. Ideas?

PS: I live in alabama

[BamaJoe]

Bama Joe, I have seen hundreds if not thousands of the "J" mark. I usually find them on a half that has an edge that is close to having a non clad look. The other day, and for the first time, I found a 40% with a "J". (Uh, Uh, I am keeping it) I do alot of business with both Well Fargo and Regions. When I used to get coins from Well Fargo, they came on a Brinks truck with a different box than from Loomis at regions. The box was a "cube". The regions box is flat and longer. This makes me wonder if Regions and Wells Fargo return coins to the same money center. If they don't, that would be knowledge worth knowing. Ideas?

PS: I live in alabama

Yep, that "J" is mine. One coin gets marked in every roll that I dump and it is usually on a coin that I pulled out while edge sorting because it looked like a possible keeper. From what I understand here locally both Loomis and Brinks keep there own supply of halves, but there does seem to be alot of intermingling because I get alot of my own back and I only order from Regions.

I live just east of Birmingham and work on just west of Birmingham so with my little experiment I'm pretty much dumping at every Wells Fargo, Compass and Regions anywhere around the city, including the suburbs. Where are you located at?

Not sure how that one got by me. Hell, I must of had one too many adult beverages that night if I even put my brand on it. Considering it does have my brand I think it's only fair that you return it to me. Sort of like branded cattle in the old west.

[dan53]

I'm way south of you....I'm in Dothan. My thoughts were that if you could figure out if two banks used different money centers then you could buy from one and dump to the other. Thereby not saturating your supply bank. I haven't had good luck lately. last four boxes yielded one 40%. Nevertheless, I am sticking with it. It hasn't been that long ago I got a box with 11 rolls clustered together in the center of the box. They were all silver. Its difficult for me to figure out why they didn't have any clad mixed in. I guess someone turned in a bunch and they kind of stayed together.

[Dan the Relentless]

What about that few hundreds in halves that were maybe sitting there. We ask alot of banks if we top off your halves can we buy the bag. Sometimes get very lucky, or if they won't we still dump enough to get that bag going to get rerolled. I know your point of getting to older boxes , I dream of that. I get Brinks and Guarda halves and dump only at Brinks. So most of my Brinks are not good but a few times a year I seem to get a few week runs that are very very good. Dan

[hags]

Any update on your experiment BamaJoe?

hags