Kantuckkeean
Bronze Member
- Apr 30, 2009
- 1,608
- 1,879
- Detector(s) used
- F-22, cheapo pinpointer
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Howdy all,
I'm a jackass. I admit it. I know how many of you feel about marking coins, so it is with much chargrin that I admit to recently taking to marking coins with a silver Sharpie. Only nickels. Not the edges, ONLY the obverse and reverse, and ONLY on what I call "parking lot nickels", yeah you know the type, very scratched, some without dates, the type only a lunatic would put in a collection. Anyways, I'd done this a few times, and all had been going well until I go to dump about $200 in nickels and $150 in halves at a bank with a new teller. First the tellers flip out over the zipper bag full of halves, then the new teller was very slow with the machine. As she's putting the nickels into the machine (seemed like about 50 at a time), she runs into my marked nickels. After seeing a few, she asked another teller about them, who replied "Do they stick to the magnet?" She said no, so the girl ran a couple of them back to a manager who came out and told her to put them aside. The manager said that they were "going to run some tests", which got the more experienced teller excited and she wanted to watch. The manager said no, but the pulling out of my marked coins slowed the new teller down even more, which frankly, I didn't think was possible. I ask, "What's going on?" even though I know. The more experienced teller says that they think some of the nickels are counterfeit. I act shocked, and I don’t want to admit that I marked them with a Sharpie, so I ask to see one. I take a look, and say “looks spray-painted”. I scratch some of the Sharpie ink off with a Canadian nickel that they’d given me back, and say “yeah, it’s coming off.” I then ask if they have any nail polish remover handy, and one girl pulls out an alcohol wipe and starts rubbing one of the “counterfeit nickels”. They’re all excited and start chatting about how cool chemistry is, and how this is the most exciting thing to happen to them all day. So some of the “paint” comes off with the alcohol wipe and we’re bouncing nickels on the counter listening to them. Yep, sounds real. I’m getting rather irked, as I’ve been in there for about 25 minutes, and I’ve got banks to get to, but I still can’t admit to marking them and I’ve only got my own stupid self to blame-should have used blue. Meanwhile, the newbie who’s like a turtle, has stopped feeding the machine. I tell her to go ahead and finish running them through, so the Secret Service can take the whole bag, or they can give them back to me, or whatever. At least that’ll be done. As the newbie goes back to the machine, the other two tellers and myself are trying to figure out who’d be so devious as to counterfeit nickels. So the manager comes back out and asks me where I got them. I say that I got them out of sealed Brinks boxes from local banks-can’t really remember which ones, start naming some of the banks I’ve got accounts with. She says that they’re going to send them off for “further testing”. I tell her about our “lobby tests” and the results, and she says that it may just be paint, but the look kind of funny and counterfeits often look really good. She says that they’ll credit my account with them, but if they turn out to be fakes, they’ll have to take the money out, and they’ll call me. So, finally, after 35-40 minutes, I get my money and go. My wife thought it was hilarious, and she was there for the last 10 minutes or so. She got tired of waiting and wanted to see what the hold up was. She thought there might be a real hold-up going on. The moral of this story is….well there is no moral I guess. Was that karma for marking coins?
Kindest regards,
Kantuck
I'm a jackass. I admit it. I know how many of you feel about marking coins, so it is with much chargrin that I admit to recently taking to marking coins with a silver Sharpie. Only nickels. Not the edges, ONLY the obverse and reverse, and ONLY on what I call "parking lot nickels", yeah you know the type, very scratched, some without dates, the type only a lunatic would put in a collection. Anyways, I'd done this a few times, and all had been going well until I go to dump about $200 in nickels and $150 in halves at a bank with a new teller. First the tellers flip out over the zipper bag full of halves, then the new teller was very slow with the machine. As she's putting the nickels into the machine (seemed like about 50 at a time), she runs into my marked nickels. After seeing a few, she asked another teller about them, who replied "Do they stick to the magnet?" She said no, so the girl ran a couple of them back to a manager who came out and told her to put them aside. The manager said that they were "going to run some tests", which got the more experienced teller excited and she wanted to watch. The manager said no, but the pulling out of my marked coins slowed the new teller down even more, which frankly, I didn't think was possible. I ask, "What's going on?" even though I know. The more experienced teller says that they think some of the nickels are counterfeit. I act shocked, and I don’t want to admit that I marked them with a Sharpie, so I ask to see one. I take a look, and say “looks spray-painted”. I scratch some of the Sharpie ink off with a Canadian nickel that they’d given me back, and say “yeah, it’s coming off.” I then ask if they have any nail polish remover handy, and one girl pulls out an alcohol wipe and starts rubbing one of the “counterfeit nickels”. They’re all excited and start chatting about how cool chemistry is, and how this is the most exciting thing to happen to them all day. So some of the “paint” comes off with the alcohol wipe and we’re bouncing nickels on the counter listening to them. Yep, sounds real. I’m getting rather irked, as I’ve been in there for about 25 minutes, and I’ve got banks to get to, but I still can’t admit to marking them and I’ve only got my own stupid self to blame-should have used blue. Meanwhile, the newbie who’s like a turtle, has stopped feeding the machine. I tell her to go ahead and finish running them through, so the Secret Service can take the whole bag, or they can give them back to me, or whatever. At least that’ll be done. As the newbie goes back to the machine, the other two tellers and myself are trying to figure out who’d be so devious as to counterfeit nickels. So the manager comes back out and asks me where I got them. I say that I got them out of sealed Brinks boxes from local banks-can’t really remember which ones, start naming some of the banks I’ve got accounts with. She says that they’re going to send them off for “further testing”. I tell her about our “lobby tests” and the results, and she says that it may just be paint, but the look kind of funny and counterfeits often look really good. She says that they’ll credit my account with them, but if they turn out to be fakes, they’ll have to take the money out, and they’ll call me. So, finally, after 35-40 minutes, I get my money and go. My wife thought it was hilarious, and she was there for the last 10 minutes or so. She got tired of waiting and wanted to see what the hold up was. She thought there might be a real hold-up going on. The moral of this story is….well there is no moral I guess. Was that karma for marking coins?
Kindest regards,
Kantuck
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good story there. I guess we all have to learn the hard way sometimes! Marking nickels 
