tigerbeetle
Full Member
- Jan 2, 2009
- 166
- 275
- Detector(s) used
- Many -- Fisher, White's, Minelab, Cobra, others
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
I’m sure this has been brought up before (often) but I’m still wondering if other hardcore detectorists run into the aggravating refusal of banks to take dug/water-found coins?
Recently, I’ve had as much as two hundred dollars’ worth to turn in.
A couple times in the past, it came down to bank-ish vernacular of whether the coins were “tarnished” or “damaged.” I preferred to call them “discolored” but they never bought that.
More often than not, they are dubbed as “damaged” – “tarnished” is preferable -- and deemed either fully unacceptable or worth half-or-less of their given face value.
And, yes, I’ve tumbled pounds and pounds of coins to make them a tad more presentable. On occasion, I’ve gone as far as polishing them up a bit with walnut shell, using a vibratory tumbler. Even after that time-consuming and costly effort, I’ve been duly told by oft-sneering bank people that they don’t want to handle them. I even get prissy, over-fingernailed tellers going “Yuck!”
And, no, I’m not cruel enough to covertly sneak my discolored coins into a bank’s outside coin-counting machine.
OK, so maybe I tried it once. Seems dug/water-found coins have a way of being frequently rejected by the counting machine -- and finally fouling it up entirely. Also, I might add that there are damn-decent cameras at those change-counters.
“Uh, that sure looks a lot like me putting all those coins in that-there machine – my bad side, mind you. Wadda ya mean I’m banned from the bank for life!? Since when is their banning in banks? Well, I’ll just take my well-polished discolored coins to a competing bank where they’ll be appreciated. And I better not see those pictures on Facebook.”
My only retort to having my coins rejected is the bona fide fact they’re officially good old American money. Shouldn’t our fine coin-popping nation take them back, sans penalty? Apparently most banks aren’t even sold on apple pie yet much less the integrity of our national coinage. Buncha commies.
By the by, once in Hawaii, the then-Aloha Bank did a decently decent thing with my nearly $400 in from-the-water coins. They accepted them on the grounds that they would send them to the US Mint (I presumed) to see what they’d get for them. I got 100 percent back (!) – and no charge for the mailing and such. Needless to say, I kept my personal bank account in that wonderful place.
However, that 100 percent return – which, by the way, I repeated a couple time thereafter -- has me wondering about banks that only give 50 percent or less for metal-detected coins. Guess who’s pocketing the clean profit from dirty coins? Did I mention they’re a buncha commies?
