An Ethical Issue When Hunting For Silver Coins

Interesting conundrum. Going off on a tangent--wonder what knowledgeable tellers do when a customer walks in and attempts to deposit or cash out a large amount of (obviously) silver coins. I've had a couple long-time tellers with this experience tell me that they would--in friendly manner--inform the customer of what they were about to do. In a few instances, the customers thanked them profusely and left the bank with their silver. On one or two other occasions, customers would just go forward with the face value transaction.

In situation #1, assuming the person seems relatively friendly and sensible, I would simply ask them, "You checked those coins for silver first, right?" If they didn't know how to check for silver, I would offer to show them immediately in the customer service area.

In situation #2, I would notify the manager, not the teller. To be clear, you are asking the bank to undergo a headache that probably involves pulling up camera footage to be sure that the coins are returned to the correct person. That assumes the bank is receptive to that in the first place.

I have asked myself some of these same questions about cherrypicking. You are, in essence, exploiting your superior knowledge of rare coins to acquire a valuable variety from an unwitting seller. It doesn't pass the grandma test—I wouldn't want someone to pay my grandma $20 for a $200 coin. Just like you wouldn't want the bank to let grandma unknowingly deposit pop-pop's silver coins. But I also think there is an element of personal responsibility to owning and selling anything with collectible value.

This scenario is not likely to be a common occurrence, simply because the banks tend not to hire people knowledgeable enough about coins that they know they could or should be doing this. Bank staff are trained to treat a 50 cent piece as 50 cents, whatever the coin is made of. Banks would certainly expect any tellers to be doing this switcho-chango procedure on the teller's own time, not on company time.


It's frankly the bank's job to be telling their customers what to do with their money, not yours; I would think the bank would frown upon people inside the bank telling other customers inside the bank to go somewhere else and not to deposit their money there.

A teller should be educated enough about old coins to be able to deliver the "I think these coins might be more valuable at a coin dealer" line. But here I'm mainly talking about obsolete coins, and not the silver coins that are the exact same design as base-metal coins. Obsolete coins (2 and 3 cent pieces, gold coins, etc) require the bank to fill in all kinds of paperwork which they'd probably rather avoid doing, and the optimal way to avoid having to do that paperwork is usually by having another customer come in and take those coins off their hands for face value.


I'm pretty sure that banks aren't allowed to just give out contact details of their customers to other customers, for any reason. I'm also pretty sure the banks would have a policy in place that customers cannot be contacted for non-banking-related purposes. I'd expect any such request to be denied.

As a collector I do not see this being any different than cherry picking off ebay. As far as the bank is concerned, their role ends at paying face value, anything else goes far beyond their responsibilities.

Let me pose a hypothetical - you stumble on a big $ unattributed Bust Half Overton while browsing ebay. It is currently BIN at 5% true value. Would you buy it, or would you send a message to the seller stating that you would rather pay $1,000 as opposed to $50?

I think it's altogether different... face-to-face transactions as opposed to conducting everything online in a faceless transaction.

Scenario 2 seems not unlike the situation described in a YouTube short I saw within the last couple of weeks.

In both scenarios I would try to clarify the situation, either to the customer at the counter who was trying to cash in their coins or via the teller who knew the customer who had done so. How would I feel if a family member of mine told me they'd cashed in a bunch of coins that I knew were worth considerably more than face value? I'd be pretty unimpressed if someone knew better and kept their mouth shut so they could take advantage of the situation.

If we're only ethical when someone is looking, we're not ethical.

In the early 2000s I was CRH in the DC area. I'd done it for years, only occasionally finding a silver here or there. I went to various banks over time both to increase my odds and because lots of banks just never or nearly ever have halves or dollars. Once I did get several rolls with about 15-20 silvers between them, mostly JFKs, but there was a Walker or two and a Franklin or two. I only discovered it after I'd left. I didn't go back.I don't feel bad. Without any clear idea of the back story, I don't really know how they ended up there. Mind you, at the time, the price of silver was a fraction of what it is now, so it would not have seemed that remarkable anyway.

Still, if I saw it happening, or someone I deemed credible brought my attention to the issue I'd certainly want to do right by others. I'd hope others would do the same with me.

On a side note, the local auction house here knows I'm a coin nerd. A few years back they had me go through a collection of coins for them just to see if there was anything noteworthy that wanted selling separately. I've known the owners for years, and I've had discussions around coins and even the ethics of the process with them over time. So they'd presented me with this medium sized tool box stuffed with coins in envelopes, some labelled, some not, loose coins, coins of New Zealand, and coins from around the world. I have a good enough idea either because of metal content or dates and using some apps to have a look through. On top it was mostly modern stuff of little interest. As I got down into it the age of the coins increased, and so did the previous metal content.

In the very bottom there was quite a bit of silver and several gold coins. Now, maybe they had some idea what was in there, and maybe they didn't, but I was going to tell them exactly what I'd found. It went to my personal credibility in future dealings with them, regardless of whether they knew what was in there, but especially if they did. It didn't take me long, and I was paid nothing for my time, but it built up an existing relationship to make it even stronger.

At the end of the day, if you have to "question" what you are about to do or have done, you know the answer. That being said, I have met some folks throughout my life that do not have this conundrum, I do not understand them. I suppose there are different levels of right and wrong in different peoples minds but if it bothers you, in any way, then it is probably wrong for you....