What Should I Be Looking For Before I Send My Coins To The Bank?

I can only wish you good luck on your endeavour. I am not much help on American coins, especially varieties.

You may want to check with your bank to see if they accept customer rolled coins before going through all that work.

All pennies and nickels before 1959, all dimes quarters before 1965, half dollars before 1971 and after 2002, 2019 & 2020 W mintmark quarters, shiny mirror-like coins that you can see your face in (proofs), 2009 pennies, and all foreign coins. You might want to show us whatever dollar coins you have if any.

Beyond sorting out silver coins, turning anything else into more than face value is going to require investing time. They might have value above face, but there is no easy marketplace for minimally valuable coins.

When did your parents start collecting change - that will give us some clue as to what to tell you to look for.

Be sure to give us a final tally on the value. My SWAG if $2K.

Have fun sorting through all of that coinage!

Thanks everyone for the different posts. Brought up great new ideas for me and questions for my folks. We have a page of everyone's guess on the total, and I feel like I definitely under guessed with my estimate of $1,234.56.
After asking Pops, I found out he started putting his change in an old coin bank, shaped like a 36 inch tall beer bottle, in 1978. After meeting my mom in 1983 the collection was poured into a 5 gallon Kentwood water container so they had a "just incase fund". They have decided to turn it in to their bank and use it for a getaway on their upcoming anniversary in March, but the bank said they only accept rolled change and they couldn't bring in all of it at one time. I'm not sure why but works out for me. My mom asked if I would roll it in my spare time as long as I got in done before March. Giving me plenty of time to separate the coins into denomination and go through them.
Ive been roll hunting since Covid locked us up in 2020, but I've been a collector of pennies and quarters since my grandfather taught me about his collection in the early 90's. I've tried to complete his error collection of Lincoln cents ever since. Quarters caught my attention with the states, then America the Beautiful series, so I've studied those more recently and have a decent knowledge of key dates and errors to look for.
I don't really plan to roll the change after I look over the coins, because the bank I use ask for loose change they bring to a counter in the back and return with a slip of the amount of each coin and a total to deposit. I've become pretty close, like first Name basis, with most of the staff of the branch that's closest to my house. They have told me it's OK to bring in the change in bags that can be lifted without serious strain as I need.
I want to thank everyone for sharing their knowledge and giving me tips, I'll be checking this forum before I grab a bag of coins to look through. If you would like to leave a guess on this insane total of the coins, I'll leave you with this information. It's $214 dollar coins, (that's the easy one), 4 Crown Royal bags, that weigh right at 30lbs each, of Quarters. Dimes filled 3, thirty pound bags. Nickles at an amazing 7 bags that weigh 28-30 pounds each. And drumroll please. Pennies with a total of 22 bags that each touch 29-30 pounds on my bathroom scale.
Best wishes to everyone!
Happy Thanksgiving to those that celebrate,
I'll be back with more info soon, James.

JJGJ, something's off here on the description of the contents. The way this is written would imply 36 bags at 30 lbs each which would be over 1,000 lbs which is not possible in a 5 gallon jug.

Any way, good luck and keep us posted on anything interesting you find!

Should weigh like 350lb total of if my mental math is correct