I went on another quest for Half Dollars this morning and came up empty handed on the silver. I did find a bank with a coin machine. They said they did get alot of half dollars but could not sell them to me that they had to ship them off. I reached into my pocket and pulled out $1000 in $50 bills and said "sure I can't change your mind?" They said no. It was so frustrating knowing that a bag of halves that surely had some silver in it slipped away. I have visted about 20 banks in the last week and gotten ZERO silver halves. I think that the banks have gotten smart and they aren't going to release them to the public anymore.
I always wondered why the banks don't keep 1 guy who goes through all the quarters and halves looking for silver and keeping it for the government. It would be profitable and the level of access can't get any better than that... who knows, maybe one day they'll start. Which would suck for all the rest of us.
It was just irritating. I am 105 coins away from assembling a home grown bag of 40% halves. I have the 2000 coins but I have pulled some of the choice ones from my findings to keep in tubes. I would rather not sell those. When I set out to accomplish something I don't give up but lately it's gotten frustrating. I can't go back to box searching, too many dry boxes, after 15 in a row I'd had enough.
Most banks do not own the machines, so they have no authority to sell change from the machines. Chris
Why not just bite the bullet and buy a Coinstar machine and place it. Operate the 'business' just like it should be operated... only search the coins.
I have thought the same thing, and thus done my homework. A CoinStar technician actually comes to remove the coins and pays the store reimbursement + fees
You could get one of these and sit infront of a store and offer 100 cents on the dollar unlike coinstar http://banksupplies.com/coin-currency/coin-counters-sorters/portable-coin-machines/r2c2-counter.html Of course you'd have to have alot of cash and possibly some type of business license.
I think too many people would suspect some sort of scam...I know I would be really skeptical of somebody offering a service and willing to do it for free. Non-collectors would definitley think something was fishy if they didn't know the intent. Besides, coin counters/sorters take a beating, and that flimsy little thing appears to be depsosable...once it breaks, the cost of shipping and service to get it repaired would be close to the purchase price. -LTB
To my knowledge they don't. I'm good friends with the tellers at our credit union that has a CoinStar machine in their entryway, and they've found 64 Washingtons in the bin on more than one occasion. They do reject Canadian coinage.
I've read stories of people finding silver coins in the reject slots, that's why I thought they rejected them. Perhaps just certain silver coins?
That can happen with clad coins as well. If the coins have gunk on them, or some kind of damage they're dropped down the rejected slot.
I have found several (between 15-20) 90% silver dimes in reject slots. Maybe there are different adjustment settings on the machines or possibly different models that reject them or let them pass. I don't know. I just think that if they are sensitive enough to tell the difference on small coins such as dimes that they would definitely tell the difference between silver and clad coins of larger denominations.