A Day Late And A Dollar Short... Tales Of Missed Opportunity

In the early 1970's, our family used to do this looking for silver quarters and then later on in the 70's, taking out the US quarters for vacations. I would re-roll them and take them back to the bank.

One day, when I was about 12 years old, taking $100 in rolled quarters to the Bank of Montreal, next thing I know, the RCMP is behind me, wondering if I was the King of the vending machine thieves. The subdivision was across the street,so they took me back there for my one phone call... Luckily for me and crime statistics everywhere, my mother verified my story.

My sister worked at a grocery store for a few years. Quite often an elderly woman would come in and buy her groceries with all 1954 series bills. Everything from ones to hundreds she used to purchase her groceries. Working at the till, my sister had the opportunity to swap the bills with modern ones but she never cared or had enough cash on her. Frustrated, I set her up with a "kitty" of cash to draw from to swap these bills. I managed to get only a few lower denomination bills before the old woman stopped coming. We figure the old woman spent a few thousand dollars in 1954 bills over the span of a few years at the grocery store alone, who knows where else she spent or how much she had stashed in the mattress. I wish I would have got on top of this one a few years earlier but I didn't know about it until too late.

Got another near miss. One of my regular banks had what they called "some really old bills that don't have the lines on them". They told me to come back today so I did bright and early and lo and behold, I was told they were returned to the mint already! Grrrrrr!

@canadtech: GACK! I feel for ya bro.