Did My First Bag

srcdco

Sr. Member
Dec 11, 2006
419
326
Western NY
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Minelab Nox-800
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
My normal pick up bank wasn't able to trade my boxes last week because the head teller was on vacation. I was at another bank making a deposit for the Boy Scout troop and asked if they sold the bags off their counting machine. They said "no problem". The bags are $50 cents, $200 nickels, $1000 dimes, and $1000 quarters. They didn't say that there were bags of halves. I was surprised at the $1000 for dimes. I expected it to be $500. I asked to get a bag of cents and nickels. When the person from the desk came to get them from the vault, she stopped and asked if I was looking for old ones. I did say that I was. She said that I didn't want the cents as they have a guy that buys all the bags of cents and runs the rejects back through the machine, so they had already been searched.

Since it was my first time, I just took the nickels. It took longer than I thought to go through them all. I did find 5 war nickels (2 - 1942P, 1942S, 1943P, and 1943S), a beautiful 1938 and few others from the 40's and 50's that I saved. I did roll them up and will take them back to a branch of my main bank on Friday. They did tell me that I can bring the "rejects" back and just put them through the machine again, but I don't want to do that. It's just creating more work for them and I'm sure they'll tire of it eventually.

I'm going to try to scrape up the $1000 for a bag of dimes. They did tell me that the machine does not reject silver, which the war nickels pretty much proved.

Oh, there was one cent in the bag and it was short 2 nickels. Not bad.

Scott
 

Upvote 0
I like hunting bags when I can get them. Awesome finds!
 

Congrats on the silver and for finding a source for bags!

They did tell me that I can bring the "rejects" back and just put them through the machine again, but I don't want to do that. It's just creating more work for them and I'm sure they'll tire of it eventually.

Well done! Newer members, take note. This is how you go the extra mile to maintain a good relationship with your bank.

[emoji106]
 

War nickels weighs the same as a normal copper nickel...
 

They did tell me that the machine does not reject silver, which the war nickels pretty much proved.

Coin counting machines that customers have access to, generally do not reject silver.
They will reject excessively worn coins, and many silver coins fit that description.
 

srcdco. What bank were you able to get the bags from? Only asking because if they told you their machine does not reject silver, then I would assume other branches of the same bank would use the same type of coin machine and also would not reject silver. Would love to see if I have a branch near me :)

Thanks and happy hunting!
TwoYewts
 

TwoYewts, I sent you a private message with the information.

Scott
 

Update - last week, I picked up a bag of cents and a bag of dimes. I've done the cents and found 23 wheats, a little less than I'd expect from $50. The oldest was 1912 and there was an XF or better 1919-S.

Now, the dimes. I'm about 3/4 through the dimes, but once I got the bag home, I noticed that it had been cut open and taped closed. I'm not very happy with that. Although I've found 2 silver dimes (1924 Mercury and 1946 Roosevelt), I think that the bag probably had a lot of silver in it and someone at the bank cut it open and removed the silver that they could see. I may say something the next time I'm in, since I don't want to buy bags that have been tampered with anyway.

Scott
 

Update - last week, I picked up a bag of cents and a bag of dimes. I've done the cents and found 23 wheats, a little less than I'd expect from $50. The oldest was 1912 and there was an XF or better 1919-S.

Now, the dimes. I'm about 3/4 through the dimes, but once I got the bag home, I noticed that it had been cut open and taped closed. I'm not very happy with that. Although I've found 2 silver dimes (1924 Mercury and 1946 Roosevelt), I think that the bag probably had a lot of silver in it and someone at the bank cut it open and removed the silver that they could see. I may say something the next time I'm in, since I don't want to buy bags that have been tampered with anyway.

Scott

Just say you don't want to buy bags that are opened because the amount is no longer verified. Don't mention silver at all, and don't make accusations.
 

Actually, that's what I was going to do. I do count what's in the bags. Both the nickel and cent bags were short 2 coins, although the cent bag had a dime in it. I mentioned that the nickel bag was short 2, saying that for $200 in nickels that's very good. The response was "you counted them?".

The tellers already know about silver as they were telling about some of their finds, in particular about an older lady that tried to put "large dollar coins" through the machine and that the tellers split them up among themselves. They didn't say if the dollars were silver or Eisenhowers and I didn't ask.

Scott
 

Don't ever let the tellers know you're counting every single coin in the bag, they are taking a risk selling it to you and if you complain about a 10 cent loss then you're going to get cut off real fast. If the count is off by $10 or something then there is a reason to complain. Good luck!
 

Don't ever let the tellers know you're counting every single coin in the bag, they are taking a risk selling it to you and if you complain about a 10 cent loss then you're going to get cut off real fast. If the count is off by $10 or something then there is a reason to complain. Good luck!

That's exactly why every branch of a local bank will NOT sell coin, because they can't verify it and someone complained.
 

In this case, it doesn't matter. I had to agree when I bought the bags that they are "as is" and that the bank owes me nothing if they are short and I owe them nothing if they are over. I made it clear when I told them that I was impressed that the machine was so close and that it was nothing more than feedback, not a complaint.

Scott
 

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