Pay In Pennies?

I seem to recall from college days that in the State of Illinois there is a state statue that does limit the number or amount of pennies a person can use to pay a debt. Whether this was a state statue or local ordinance I don't recall, but the limit that pizza parlors would take in a college town was $5 in pennies.

I know that in the State of Ohio you can't pay a traffic ticket in pennies. A friend of mine who was a Columbus cop says that someone tried to do just that and was turned away. He later came back into the police station wearing his revolvers. That he could do as he also went into the police stations cafeteria to eat his lunch. The particular watch commander said that he could do that, but was followed around by a few cops just to make sure that there was no trouble.

This story was related to me by a cop who was there. I've never seen anything in the press about this but this supposedly happened over 15 years ago.

the people in line behind you probably thought you a jerk, but I think its funny.

I wouldn't have said that politely thing. And I would have said something worse than pain in the bun too.
But since this is a family forum, your statement will be OK for now.
And as I mentioned before, why look for trouble? I know if I paid for anything at our local village hall in pennies, I'd probably have tickets on my cars every day. Village inspectors would be all over my house. Yes they would take them, but why look for problems.
Contrary to paying with pennies, I love the women in line at a store that pull out a check to pay for something. And nothing premade out, all must be entered now. And sometimes for only a few dollars.

I've had this happen to me at work (with both pennies and quarters). My answer: "Here are some wrappers. I'll be happy to help you when you can pay without holding up all these people behind you." I'm happy to accept wrapped coin in any amount.


Don't be a jerk--roll your coin. And, if you're trying to spend a dump instead of just, well, dumping it, don't try to do it all at once. I've handed out up to $2 (in pennies) and $15 (in dimes) in wrappers, and most people seem glad to take in those small amounts.


. . . . of course, I'm also at an advantage because I can take ten bucks' worth of pennies to work, swap 'em out for a $10 bill, and not get in trouble for it, so take that with a grain of salt. I do most of my dumping that way (actually wondering if I'd freak out our assistant manager if I finished rewrapping my current box of $25 and took it in tonight to swap out with the $25 we just got--dump AND more to search, bonus!).

My small town Postmaster liked being paid in rolled coins - it saved her a trip to the bank. I would ask if she wanted them for payment and she would take them, then I would show her my excess rolled coins and she would "buy" what she needed.

It's kinda funny.... I thought once that that was the only way I could take my change back to the bank for deposit. Well, I bank with BoA and they don't take rolled change any more. 10 years ago or so I took about 2-300 bucks of rolled change in to my branch. Great. It took me another 5 years to accumulate that much from regular spending and the next time I took it in all nicely rolled (after a few hours in front of the TV with coin wrappers and a bottle or 4 of wine), they told me politely that I needed to break all the rolls into a large heavy-duty plastic bag that they would seal up and ship off to San Antonio to be counted.

It didn't take nearly as long to break the rolls as it took to wrap them, obviously, but sheesh. What a lot of wasted effort.

Now I know. And any time I go to the bank I ask for one of those bags so I can easily throw my CRH rejects and pocket change into them.

Moral - check with your bank to see if they don't accept rolled change before you spend time rolling. I suspect it's the larger guys that don't take rolled stuff.

I just roll hunted my first box of pennies. Afterwards, I wasnt really sure what to do with the ones I didnt want to keep. Taking a 8.9% haircut or whatever other fee someone would place seems a bit ridiculous. In searching for alternatives, I was at Woodman's Foods and saw the self checkout had a funnel for payment of change. Today was the test run and I successfully paid with about 140 pennies (and the rest with cash). It took a minute or two for it to process but there were no other issues. I tested it for small amounts (up to 20 cents) and the counter appeared accurate. Paying for anything more than $2 with pennies would probably be conspicuously long.

I still dont know where I'll get rid of halves if I ever roll hunt those...

Gerrod, try your local gas station! My station is full of coin hunters, and we all look for different things. I wouldn't advise trying to pay with a hundred bucks in halves, but as long as you have a nicely wrapped roll, or can count your coin out QUICKLY (the number of people I have to count for because they apparently can't handle multiples of five, YEESH), your local station should have no problem accepting your coin in small amounts. I've taken payments of up to $32 in dollar coins and halves for gas and snacks. That particular gentleman had a great system: Showed me which kind of coin he was using (he paid with his dollars first, then halves), then quickly stacked them out: "One-two-three-four-five, one-two-three-four-ten, one-two-three-four-fifteen." (The $2 at the end was a single stack of halves.) All I had to do was sweep up the coins and dump 'em in my alternate-change slot.