Awesome Bank Find!!!

Please do not take offense to what I have to say about your quote DAVIDH, but I am going to have to say the first two paragraphs are mostly a guilt trip IMO. How do you know what the old lady does or doesn't need? You don't.

Having said that that money was only worth $10 to her, and that is what she got for it, so she is not any worse of than she expected to be; however, the kind thing to do would definately been to explain to her that what she had was much more valuable than $10. I think it was a real stand up thing that bank personnel called the old woman who brought in two $1000 notes to a bank to cash in. I read that article on coinflation. In her case what she had was of significant value.

If I knew the lady had a roll of walkers I would have had to tell her to take them to a coin shop, or offer her outright cash for her coins, but this could get a little old after a while. I'm sure a lot of people cash in old silver coins without any knowledge to what they are doing, and it is not really the job of the bank to teach people about PM, or valuable coins, notes, et cetera.

It is dishonerable to prey on ignorance, but in this case it would seem to me the old lady would have to know that these coins are not seen in pocket change today, and I'm sure she also knew they were old. She was doing with her coins what she wanted to do, and that is what she got. He did not go out searching for an old lady with a pocket full of silver so my opinion is karma could have been on his side that day.

A mean old coin dealer who charged a huge markup on bullion gold once gave me a 1/10 ounce AGE I did not pay for. I knew something was wierd about the transaction when I did not recieve the correct change. I looked for the reciept, and could not find it either (probably because I paid cash and he was hiding that cash transaction from the GOV). When I got home I realized the guy not only gave me a free coin, he put my cash in the envelope with the coin. I really wanted to go back in there and give him the money, but I was pretty sure he was going to get all bent out of shape over the deal as he is a real cranky guy. So the next time I went in the shop I took the money with me, but he didn't say anything. I didn't say anything either. I did not prey on ignorance, but ignorance was in my favor. I don't feel bad about it, and if the guy was not such a jerk all the time I would have explained the whole thing to him, and given him his money. Without a reciept and any proof of what I was saying my motive was to avoid an argument, and or to avoid making the guy feel stupid.

 

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Nice catch, your gain.

It is like cherrypicking a rare variety.

Should I have told a dealer (actually three) that the 1858 Flying eagle was actually an 1858/7?
No chance.
Congrats on the find.

You deserve some benefits, I know how crummy banks pay.

 

I'd have to agree with davidh on this one. After getting to know a lot of the folks here, I've found them to be upstanding, salt-of-the-earth type people. I'd like to think that if presented with the same situation, that we'd probably tell the woman exactly what she had, that they were worth much more than face value, and maybe offer her something close to what a dealer would pay her for these coins. You'd still be getting a good deal for yourself, buying them essentially at wholesale value, but more importantly, you'd be doing the right thing by someone who otherwise wouldn't know any better.
We've read this credo every day here, but I think it bears repeating here..."Knowledge, share it."

 

blah blah blah.
nice find.. Nice cherry pick.
and its the exact same thing as frank was saying. Should he have made the dealer aware about the flying eagle?! no, if he did you would never get a good deal.
ALTHOUGH, I agree that it would have been nice to let her know the value, it is NO reason to start an argument about ethics and morals.
and Davids first two paragraphs are completely Hypothetical...
why not say,...
"what if that old lady knew the exact value of those, and what if she knew you were a coin collector and would appreciate them at face value?
what if she was aware the "walker" aliens from mars were coming and she didn't want to have a run in with them...
could go on all day.
lets not get hypothetical, get into morals, or ethics here...
NICE COINS, good value

 

I completely disagree. This is not the same situation as cherry picking a dealer's coin, because he's in the business. If you take the time to go over his inventory and find something worthwhile, by all means, go for it.

As for it being a good value, no, it's a GREAT value for the OP. It still would have been a good value for him if he gave her something close to what a dealer would offer.

 

If a bank teller made an offer to buy a customer's coinage inside the bank, I am pretty sure they would be fired immediately for soliciting.

I would actually like to hear from a bank teller regarding this policy, but I doubt it is allowed.

 

That is true 100%.

 

I'm not offended by your comments. After all, everyone has their own opinion. I'll grant you that my first two paragraphs may be total B.S. but that does not negate the third paragraph which I stand behind totally. If someone does something to someone else that they would not want done to themselves, then they did wrong. There are those here who assume that the lady knew what she was doing; I assume that she did not know. In either case, if it was recognized that she might not have known what she really had, she should have been given the information.

It's easy to look at a case like this from a biased point of view. Most of the posters here are collectors and their bias is to get something desirable for as little as possible. What's not so easy is to remove your biases and look at this from the other side too. The woman was taken advantage of by someone who possessed knowledge that she didn't (don't try to convince me that she knew exactly what she had and simply didn't care). Was he legally obligated to educate her? Maybe, maybe not*. Was he morally obligated? Yes.

* For instance, let's say that you have a painting that you take to a dealer and that dealer examines that painting and asserts that it is a relative worthless painting by no one important. Now, if that dealer offers you $50 and you take it, you're presumably satisfied with the deal, based on his assessment of the value. However, if you later visit that same shop and see the same painting being sold for $50,000, you can make a legal case that you were deliberately cheated and you could sue for what you should have been paid.

What I'd like to hear from the OP is why, having determined that the coins were worth more than $.50 each, he did not say something to the lady. After all, if he opened the roll and had seen an iron washer at each end, would he have accepted the roll without comment?

 

A common courtesy and proper thing to do, would be to at least make her aware of what she was doing. That she had silver coins worth at least 10X face value. She was cashing in her change after all, probably needing the money.

Do we do the right thing? NO, we do the LEGAL thing.

With that type of logic, like I said. Enjoy the $240. Brag about it here. It says MILLIONS about your character.

Call me funny, but I would have got much more profit from knowing I could have helped the old gal out.

Coin Karma

It's big.

 

aw, guys.......


Gimme a break!


How about all of those roll searchers? Recently someone found a 1931 S Lincoln.
If there had been an account # on the roll should he/she/they have contacted the bank and asked to deposit, say $50 in the account?

No more from me, it is getting too sanctimonious here.

 

Why do we have to even consider "what-if" scenarios? We were presented with an actual circumstance, and gave our opinions.

 

What if's make it easier on us to justify lapses of judgement

This is a very telling thread. Quite suprising responces from a cpl posters actually. I'll stop now, if it were me, I 'd have handled it differently, nothing more.

 

I could have gone into that bank 10 minutes later and bought that roll for face. Would I be morally-crooked? No. What the OP did MAY not have been the right choice. But it wasn't so bad. The woman probably didn't pay anything over face value for them anyway.

I would have told her that her coins had more value than face, had I been the teller.

Here's a scenario for you, to hopefully counter the ignorant-old-lady stigma that so many on this forum are victim to. My best friend worked as a teller at a bank in high school. One day an older woman came in to deposit a number of silver dollars. My friend told her that what she had was worth well more than a dollar (he wasn't a collector, so he may have exaggerated a little). She told him to put them aside for himself, because all she wanted out of them was face value.

I guess what annoys me the most about these posts are the constant assumptions of the depositor's financial situation.

 

I used to work as a bookkeeper at a supermarket, and there was one month where someone came in every week and spent $100s, $50s and $20s from the 1934 series in crisp, perfect condition. I bought a whole bunch of them from the drawer, but it turned out the dealers only paid about 5% over face for them, so I kept them and still have a couple sitting around.

 

Did you check the roll while the person was standing there or after?

 

:whistle:

 

I asked again for extra emphasis so now I'll explan. That to me is the distinction. Stumbling on them after the fact is different, for me, than opening while the opportunity still existed to point the coins out to the depositor.

 

problem is, you cant do that with everyone.
If everytime someone paid me with a wheatie, war nickel, or even a silver coin, should I stop them and say "excuse me sir/ma'am, you're paying me with a coin that to a collector is worth more than face value" ??

 

I usually take a moment and explain what I am looking at. Now I have cashiers at the hardware store and gas station who check their change for me.

 

sweet!!!