Make Friends With A Bank Teller

it would take a moron to do this. any semi-intelligent person at least google's a coin that's nearly 100 years old rather than "trade" it to the bank for a paper dollar, c'mon...

and the teller/bank manager decided to not realize their institution had $100 in value and gave them away? no internet search? no rules on the job about doing this?

No. The bank only recognizes it as a $1 dollar coin. I've done this before on notes at Bank of America. Picked up valuable red notes and other old notes in transactions like this. All I did was ask if they had any old bills.

Congrats to OP!

Congrats OP!!

This used to be possible in the small town I grew up in (2,500 folks -- we had literally two banks -- a Citizens National Bank and a NCNB) and I got an entire roll of Unc. 40% Kennedy halves this way as well as lots of Ike dollars. Nowadays I live in a much, much larger city (900,000 folks or more) and the tellers at my local Chase, while friendly, don't make it a habit to save unusual or old coins. The best I can usually get from them is modern Kennedy halves and SBA's, and last year I got a Mint wrapped $25 roll of NCLT Denver-minted Truman dollars.

Fortunately, I manage the cashiers (among many others) where I work, and they know to pull "old or interesting or weird" coins out of the drawers for me in exchange for "finders' fees" tips :P Gotten quite a few Wheaties that way, a V nickel, a couple of Buffalo nickels, and a dateless SLQ that way, along with some circulated modern Proofs and a lone Ike dollar.

I have also looked at some of the CoinStar machines in local grocery stores but the reject slot is always empty.

wow op, hope you reward that teller!

I asked my teller the other day and she said they deal with a Dealer and they send everything there way when they get any old coins or notes. She then said that her husband collects, maybe he is the dealer, who knows but it sucks for me.

I need to stop by my bank branch with a box of donuts later.

I'm actually pretty friendly with the employees at this branch. They are right across from my office and one of a few local banks with a coin counting machine which I use three or four times a week.

I wouldn't be so quick to pass judgement on people who innocently turn these coins in for cash. The truth is that the majority of the population has no idea about coins or that they might be worth extra money above face value. They find something like this in a box, they just want to get it turned into "real" money so they can spend it easily. Whomever had these coins also might have thought they were foreign or even counterfeit and were happy when the bank took them off their hands.

Just think about how many valuable baseball cards have bit the dust because someone found them and thought they were silly, and chucked 'em. I'm sure there are many miscellaneous things in each of our worlds we come across each day that to a collector of that thing, they can't believe we pass it by.