According to the US Mint "Uncurrent coins are coins that are worn yet recognizable as to genuineness and denomination, and are machine countable. Uncurrent coins are redeemed by the Federal Reserve Banks, then forwarded to the Mint for disposition." Yet, I've gotten so much garbage when searching rolls. I've gotten plastic money, foreign coins that are no where near the size of the coins in rolls that they were found in, coins that are so worn that you can barely read the date, and just plain garbage (thread, paper, etc...). My question is two fold, 1. Does the Fed Reserve actually pull out uncurrent coins and send them off for destruction? I'm doubting it since they actually admit to not being able to screen for counterfeit coins. 2. As a roll searcher, is there a way for me to send back a bag of uncurrent coins and mark them as such so that they do get destroyed instead of just being reintroduced into circulation. I'm being selfish by doing so, but it would help out other roll searchers by eliminating junk coins from the pool of coins to search.
gatzon: 1) The Fed dosen't pull non-current coins. The are pulled by banks, etc and sent in as mutilated coins. (The same as with currency.) 2) You can send in mutilated or what ever for redemption, just follow their instructions. However, you generally get below face, they are redeemed by weight.
The first question that occurred to me when reading is, are you actually getting rolls that have passed through the Federal Reserve System? I'm not at all familiar with the process, but I know I used to turn in rolled coins to my financial institution (the only way they would accept them). It seemed to me that when others asked for rolls, they'd just get mine. I had to write my account number on each roll, presumably so they could ding me if I put junk (i.e. non-US coins) instead of coins into the rolls. So, is what you're getting really from the Fed, or from Joe Schmoe who dropped them off just before you got there? Oh, and I no longer have to roll coins... another financial institution takes them in bulk and has a coin counter! No telling what happens to those coins.
The FED doesn't do much with coins any longer and almost all this work is contracted out to Brink's, Purolator, et al. Uncurrent coin is coin that can't be counted or is redeemed in NY by weight be- cause of its mutilated or damaged condition. Costs of transporting coin is so high that everyone wants to play musical chairs with the bad coins so they don't incur the shipping costs. The counting houses do try to remove the worst of the junk but as we all know there's a lot of bad coin out there. I've repaired coins just to get them through counting machines and pass them on.
I'm thoroughly convinced that either the Fed doesn't see the majority of these coins, or they just pass the bags on without even opening them. What I'm curious about is if I give a bank a $1000 bag of halves and clearly label the bag "UNCURRENT", would the bank, coin wrapping service, and the Fed respect that and send them back to the mint to be melted. If they would, I might start doing that when searching halves in order reduce the population of bad coins out there.
