So I recently went through my jars of foreign coins and realized that I have about $25 worth of Canadian cents, nickels, dimes, and quarters (mostly cents and nickels). I was wondering what I should do with them. Do any of you turn them back in to banks? I'm guessing that the non-magnetic stuff would make it through the coin machine. Just curious.
I sell them on the BST for about 60-70% of face value. I even end up with dollar coins from coin machine reject finds.
My primary suggestion is to find someone on the boards who's near Canada and work something out with them. My secondary suggestion is to keep spending them at retail places one or two at a time. However, if you put too many, the chances of someone "catching" it and handing them back to you increase. If you try to coin count them, the magnets will pick the quarters, dimes, and nickels off. Now, before anyone chastises me for saying that, just keep in mind that we've most likely accumulated this change from retail stores and banks...so we paid face value for it.
Yeah....that's a bit out of my way for $25 . I'm thinking that most of the non-magnetic stuff (cents and nickels) will go into my coin counter at the CU. I mean, I bought them for FV from them so I might as well give them back I just want the $$ to add to my CRH funds.
The pre 2000 cents and five cents coins dated from 1982-1999 will go into coin counting machines as the electronic signature and weight are similar to USA coins - and that is how I get rid of those. I get most of mine from roll searching and coin machine reject slots. Sometime a few months ago I sold over C$140 in accumulated change from the previous year or so of roll searching.
I've used "we buy euros" (not mine, I'm from NYC) to sell foreign with good results. http://www.webuyeuros.com/
I found a charity/non-profit in upstate New York with some local representation. I save 'em up and give it to them once or twice a year. For small amounts, I have heard that SOME people will get rolls of coins and swap in a few Canadians. But that would probably get you on the "naughty" list.
Is it legal to melt Canadian coins in the US? I get conflicting information online about this. If, and I stress IF, it is legal to melt Canadian coins in the US, then you may want to see about selling the copper cents to a scrap metal company or something like that to maybe get a little more in return. Just a thought.
Maybe some unreputable smelter might do it - but try it at a reputable one and I bet they would at least turn you away. I have taken old appliances and water heaters to a local scrapyard, they have to take your license, a fingerprint etc. Metal theft is a big thing apparently.
I know its a different country, Canada. I assume they melt the US coinage that they receive in their alloy recovery program. The program that is removing all of their circulating silver, nickel, and copper and replacing it with steel. It is common to see US coins circulation with native Canada coins.
I save the older Canadian cents and five cent coins from before 1982 when they changed the weight and composition of both. Gees I have even turned up some GV and GVI stuff that is worth a lot more than melt or face value. The best Canadian find so far is a 1925 GV cent worth about $40 in XF.