The day the silver died-- RIP --Southern Arizona

[7up2000]

Loomis has now calibrated their sorting machines to reject the silver nickels. This is a recent event. Therefore, all silver is being removed from Wells Fargo bank coinage(and other banks contracted with Loomis). All silver halves, quarters, dimes, and nickels are being eliminated at the Loomis distribution point. Yeah, it sucks. I am thoroughly bummed out. One of my favorite hobbies is gone. Wonder which area of the country will be next? The hobby is ruined for hundreds of people here in Southern Arizona. RIP

 

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[enamel7]

The coin doesn't belong to the coin facilities and the machines needed to cull out silver would be expensive. This isn't 3 men and a truck doing it on the side. The facilities are controlled by people even higher up. The money in their facilities belong to the federal reserve and they just sort and deliver them. They are also accountable for every cent coming and going. I would think it's more likely that people are dumping into machines at banks that reject silver and it never gets to the facility.

 

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[mxh5891]

Sorry your not finding silver, I'm still getting some silver out of Loomis boxes in Southern Az. Last box just before christmas gave me 23 silver halves, 20 40% and 3 90%. I then left town for Florida for 2 months and have just returned and have boxes coming in next week so will see how they do. Yes I too ran through many many boxes of zip zero nada silver, then they startd producing again, no reason that I know of. This is a hobby, not a business for me, so you take the good and the bad as part of this hobby. When I find nothing in my boxes, other than time, it cost me nothing to hunt. While gone for the two months I was able to order 6 boxes of halves in Florida, finding a total of 16 40% coins, so I had a vacation and still found some silver. Wish you luck and hope your idea is wrong.

QUOTE=7up2000;4862215]Loomis has now calibrated their sorting machines to reject the silver nickels. This is a recent event. Therefore, all silver is being removed from Wells Fargo bank coinage(and other banks contracted with Loomis). All silver halves, quarters, dimes, and nickels are being eliminated at the Loomis distribution point. Yeah, it sucks. I am thoroughly bummed out. One of my favorite hobbies is gone. Wonder which area of the country will be next? The hobby is ruined for hundreds of people here in Southern Arizona. RIP

[/QUOTE]

Looks like the OP was just having bad luck. I always find it hard to believe that Loomis would be doing what he claimed. I have found that people like to make up stories on how various coin distributors are taking silver out, just so they think that they will turn others off of CRH.

 

[mxh5891]

The coin doesn't belong to the coin facilities and the machines needed to cull out silver would be expensive. This isn't 3 men and a truck doing it on the side. The facilities are controlled by people even higher up. The money in their facilities belong to the federal reserve and they just sort and deliver them. They are also accountable for every cent coming and going. I would think it's more likely that people are dumping into machines at banks that reject silver and it never gets to the facility.

Now that sounds like a much more reasonable and plausible explanation on why silver is scarce in boxes

 

[Liu21]

Only one way to find out, head down to your local loomis facility and ask them. Better yet apply for a job at the facility.

 

[mxh5891]

Only one way to find out, head down to your local loomis facility and ask them. Lol

I have found plenty of silver in Loomis boxes so I know it's not happening in my area.

 

[ArkieBassMan]

The coin doesn't belong to the coin facilities and the machines needed to cull out silver would be expensive. This isn't 3 men and a truck doing it on the side. The facilities are controlled by people even higher up. The money in their facilities belong to the federal reserve and they just sort and deliver them. They are also accountable for every cent coming and going. I would think it's more likely that people are dumping into machines at banks that reject silver and it never gets to the facility.

While I agree that it would not be a sound financial decision for this/these Loomis facilities to build a machine to cull silver, I don't think its much of a stretch to think that their machines might inadvertently cull silver while culling other rejects such as tokens, foreign objects and the like, much like a Coinstar.

Who actually "owns" the coins is debatable, but I can guarantee you that the Fed wouldn't give a rat's patootie about someone swapping out a few rejected coins here and there. Likely neither would the management at Loomis. I have no idea what the official policy is for the rejected stuff, but it very well might be that they are to be simply trashed.

Are all couriers culling some silver? Of course not. But to say it isn't happening at all, anywhere, is likely very naive and short-sighted.

 

[FormerTeller]

The coin doesn't belong to the coin facilities and the machines needed to cull out silver would be expensive. This isn't 3 men and a truck doing it on the side. The facilities are controlled by people even higher up. The money in their facilities belong to the federal reserve and they just sort and deliver them. They are also accountable for every cent coming and going. I would think it's more likely that people are dumping into machines at banks that reject silver and it never gets to the facility.

They're not accountable for squat! I can't tell you how many times I deposited bags of only halves and had them counted wrong. $477.83 for $500 in halves? Accountability my foot!

 

[enamel7]

I honestly couldn't see a company allowing workers to "swap out" coins. They have plenty of work to do and orders to fill. I would imagine the security would be quite stiff. They have to account for what they receive from banks and from the fed. Count being wrong from a customer is a different thing. If they didn't care what the workers did could you imagine the money that would walk out each year?

 

[47thelement]

I wish I had a dime for every time this topic is brought up. Hell it doesn't need yo be a silver, I'd take clad and still make a couple hundred.

 

[FormerTeller]

With respect to who "owns" the coins, yes, the customer owns the money, but each bank is not entitled to get back the exact same coins they sent out to be counted. At best they get back the same number of each denomination, but more likely their accounts get credited/debited/whatever, and boxes of coin are bought and sold.

When I ran the coin sorting machine at the Coin & Currency section of the bank I worked at, I or anybody else was free to look through the coins in the hopper and exchange clad (or errors, or foreign) for silver to my hearts content - AS MY SCHEDULE ALLOWED. Which is to say, not freakin often. I did find a lot of silver and errors, but I really didn't spend that much time looking; wish I had now. Had the technology existed then, or been as easy to obtain, I might have been able to have found a way to Rydale a good portion of the coins (during my shift only). The manager may have been able to install some sort of sensor to achieve the same goal, IF the technology had been available, IF he knew how to install it, and IF he was willing to risk his job. I can guarantee you that even if it was possible, he wouldn't have considered it. I can't believe a coin sorting facility manager now would risk his job either.

Now a corporate or regional policy shift is another story. I still don't see it happening.

 

[FormerTeller]

I honestly couldn't see a company allowing workers to "swap out" coins. They have plenty of work to do and orders to fill. I would imagine the security would be quite stiff. They have to account for what they receive from banks and from the fed. Count being wrong from a customer is a different thing. If they didn't care what the workers did could you imagine the money that would walk out each year?

From my experience, swapping out coins isn't and shouldn't be an issue - so long as the count is right. I guarantee you they don't make workers empty their pockets when they go in and out.

 

[ArkieBassMan]

From my experience, swapping out coins isn't and shouldn't be an issue - so long as the count is right. I guarantee you they don't make workers empty their pockets when they go in and out.

And we're likely talking rejected coins here. Probably not a lot of hopper diving going on, but I'd bet money it does happen.

 

[jrf30]

I remember there being a member on here that lived in Arizona and was on a 100 box skunk streak or ssomething like that. Within the last few weeks someone whom I believe to be that same gentlemen finally found a 40% in a MWR. I don't mean to be so vague in my post but in my time on this site I've heard other people posting about Arizona being completely dry besides this guy. Wether they still log on here and can confirm is anyone's guess. In regards to the OP though, can you not still find wheats, and buffaloes? I mean that's better than dropping the hobby entirely... right?

I am that original guy. I ran over 112 boxes without a single find. And did a lot of it because I had a proof and NIFC buyer (At a small premium, but it kept me "trying") I finally gave up. I've done other things, but not the halves. Now, the answer as to what happened.

Loomis installed new machines for their halves a few years ago. apparently from what is writtenon this trheat, they have now done it with the nickels too. WHy>? How? the OFFICIAL answer I got from loomis:

gbanks give us coins, and they have a LOT of fake crap in there. So, in order to not give them credit for things like Medio balboas and some tokens that get through, we installed a sorter. (it acts much like the Ryedale sorter we penny hoarders use) If a coin does not match the wanted coin, it gets rejected. Turns out, it reject silver ahlbes too. Just a bonus. We did not set out to cull the silver, but it does that too. We give them credit for the silver coins (at face value) but reject the foreign coins and non-coins that are sorted out. It was something we added when we had to change out our machine anyway, so it was not a big cost". that is from a manager, and man who was pretty open with me in a long conversation. I knew the jig was up. And it was. And has been. Now, if they have added it to the nickel machine, it means they had to replace the part that sorted it, and so they added the discrimination sorter on that one too. he told me they would not do it for the culling, but only when the machines needed upgrading. but YES, it has been standard here in Phoenix for a few YEARS. And there has been one major bank that uses a DIFFERENT machine, and has had some silver slide by. Not much, but because it has been worked out and is only new silver added that slips by, but once in a while some gets through there. But even though I was ridiculed by many for saying that Phoenix had this machine, it is still the truth. I hope it never comes to other parts of the country, as I wish you all well, but it IS here, and it WILL come there eventually.

First time reading the board in probably a half year. Good to see some of the same people still here.

 

[ivan salis]

I used to find silver thru my wells fargo --then it just totally dried up --it was like someone thru a switch --boom no more silver halves at all...

 

[mark1982]

I have said this in other threads like this. Not a single employee not even the manager can touch a single coin inside of a coin sorting facility . Most of them are required to wear short sleeves and pants that are tucked into boots. There are cameras everywhere. They can not keep anything for there own benifit. They are not privately owned businesses

 

[diggummup]

So, southern Az. has the only Loomis sort facilities in the country with these "new" machines installed, huh? For a few years now to boot? If they were culling out silver in Az., then they would be doing it nationwide by now in my opinion. I can't believe that only Az. has had new machines installed over the last few years. The glory days of pulling silver are far gone. If you're doing it for the silver only, then it's not worth the effort put forth to do it. jmho

 

[SFBayArea]

I am that original guy. I ran over 112 boxes without a single find. And did a lot of it because I had a proof and NIFC buyer (At a small premium, but it kept me "trying") I finally gave up. I've done other things, but not the halves. Now, the answer as to what happened.

Loomis installed new machines for their halves a few years ago. apparently from what is writtenon this trheat, they have now done it with the nickels too. WHy>? How? the OFFICIAL answer I got from loomis:

gbanks give us coins, and they have a LOT of fake crap in there. So, in order to not give them credit for things like Medio balboas and some tokens that get through, we installed a sorter. (it acts much like the Ryedale sorter we penny hoarders use) If a coin does not match the wanted coin, it gets rejected. Turns out, it reject silver ahlbes too. Just a bonus. We did not set out to cull the silver, but it does that too. We give them credit for the silver coins (at face value) but reject the foreign coins and non-coins that are sorted out. It was something we added when we had to change out our machine anyway, so it was not a big cost". that is from a manager, and man who was pretty open with me in a long conversation. I knew the jig was up. And it was. And has been. Now, if they have added it to the nickel machine, it means they had to replace the part that sorted it, and so they added the discrimination sorter on that one too. he told me they would not do it for the culling, but only when the machines needed upgrading. but YES, it has been standard here in Phoenix for a few YEARS. And there has been one major bank that uses a DIFFERENT machine, and has had some silver slide by. Not much, but because it has been worked out and is only new silver added that slips by, but once in a while some gets through there. But even though I was ridiculed by many for saying that Phoenix had this machine, it is still the truth. I hope it never comes to other parts of the country, as I wish you all well, but it IS here, and it WILL come there eventually.

First time reading the board in probably a half year. Good to see some of the same people still here.

The big question is what happens to the silver they cull out ?
What do they do with the silver? What if a large collection dump gets turned in? Where does the culled silver go? That may be a fishy excuse that the facility guy is saying but in reality if the culled coins included silver U.S. coins, those should be thrown back into the pool to be wrapped since they are U.S. coins. No sense in taking them out of circulation since they are legal tender. It doesn't take long to sort those out from other coins just like at the Coinstar reject shoot.

I doubt regular employees can cull out coins but who is to stop the top boss at the facility from doing it? Like fox guarding the hen house. How many times has a top boss used company funds for personal use? Hmmm.

Medio Balboa have the same dimensions as regular U.S. halves. They use dollars in Panama so their coinage dimensions matches ours. They should get through the machines. No loss from Balboas either since a Balboa equals a Dollar. I knew that would be the excuse used by the manager of the facility. But in reality, in all parts of the country, we know and find few very few foreign coins in boxes. More silver gets found in the boxes than foreign (other than states near Canada). I can't imagine Arizona being that much different than rest of the country when it comes to foreign coins, tokens in circulation. Plus who would throw in foreign coins to substitute as nickels? No much profit there and not worth the time. Nickels is the denomination that I find the least amount of foreign coins compared to others (dimes, quarters, halves). Quarters has the most in my opinion. Makes no sense to sort out nickels in my opinion other than get those war nickels.

When I lived in San Diego, I found very little Mexican coinage in boxes. The most common foreign coin I've found in boxes is the British 5 Pence when I used to search dimes.

I'm sure the guy running the facility is saying that as a ruse but in reality, I don't buy it.

 

[SFBayArea]

They're not accountable for squat! I can't tell you how many times I deposited bags of only halves and had them counted wrong. $477.83 for $500 in halves? Accountability my foot!

Very true.. My dump bank of late has been shorting me. A totaled sum of around $100. That's a lot of hard work gone down the tubes. We don't have coin counters at branches out here. The bank credits or debits my account. They claimed I had quarters, dimes, etc in what I turned in which is BS since I've done this hobby for over 15 years and the bags only have halves. I've learned that I wasn't the only one since someone that deposits quarters only from a laundry facility also got weird change in their account. Some thing is off at the dump bank counting cash vault. I pray they don't replace with one of those culling machines.

 

[mxh5891]

The big question is what happens to the silver they cull out ?
What do they do with the silver? What if a large collection dump gets turned in? Where does the culled silver go? That may be a fishy excuse that the facility guy is saying but in reality if the culled coins included silver U.S. coins, those should be thrown back into the pool to be wrapped since they are U.S. coins. No sense in taking them out of circulation since they are legal tender. It doesn't take long to sort those out from other coins just like at the Coinstar reject shoot.

I doubt regular employees can cull out coins but who is to stop the top boss at the facility from doing it? Like fox guarding the hen house. How many times has a top boss used company funds for personal use? Hmmm.

Medio Balboa have the same dimensions as regular U.S. halves. They use dollars in Panama so their coinage dimensions matches ours. No loss from Balboas. I knew that would the excuse used by the manager of the facility. But in reality, in all parts of the country, we know and find few very few foreign coins in boxes. More silver gets found in the boxes than foreign (other than states near Canada). I can't imagine Arizona being that much different than rest of the country when it comes to foreign coins, tokens in circulation. Plus who would throw in foreign coins to substitute as nickels? No much profit there and not worth the time. Nickels is the denomination that I find the least amount of foreign coins compared to others (dimes, quarters, halves). Quarters has the most in my opinion. Makes no sense to sort out nickels in my opinion other than get those war nickels.

I'm sure the guy running the facility is saying that as a ruse but in reality, I don't buy it.

The actual question is do they even cull any silver at all? They only thing I am hearing is one guys opinion and have not heard of any actual facts that they are. Until somebody goes into a southern Arizona Loomis facility with a hidden camera to prove they are culling, you can not state they are doing as a fact.

Many people bring up good points about why is it only happening in Arizona and not everywhere else? In my eyes all signs point to it not happening in Arizona. Southern Arizona just might be all crappie all ready to find silver. People are finding it there, it's just their averages all reared much worse then other places. So what if a guy had a 112 box skunk streak. Many other hunters all over the country has had similar skunk streaks and that by no means proves anything about Loomis culling silver.

There was even someone on here from southern Arizona that stated they found plenty of silver in their boxes. Let's finally put this kind of thread to rest. Coin processing facilities are not culling silver. Most likely those areas just don't have people dumping silver back into circulation.

I will admit that it's possible for an employee to cull some silver, buts it's an entirely different thing to state that a coin facility is culling every single silver coin ever made and also all buffalo and very nickel. It would have to be one he'll of a conspiracy if Loomis was doing it. They would have to be paying off pretty much every employee in the facility to keep there mouth shut. Image the bags of coins they would have to sneak out. Then they would have to sell large amounts and explain how they got such large amounts. Doesn't anything over 10k have to be reported? All it would take was for someone to check the bank records or tax documents of employees of the Loomis place to see if anyone there has sold a large amount of precious metals.

 

[SFBayArea]

The actual question is do they even cull any silver at all? They only thing I am hearing is one guys opinion and have not heard of any actual facts that they are. Until somebody goes into a southern Arizona Loomis facility with a hidden camera to prove they are culling, you can not state they are doing as a fact.

Many people bring up good points about why is it only happening in Arizona and not everywhere else? In my eyes all signs point to it not happening in Arizona. Southern Arizona just might be all crappie all ready to find silver. People are finding it there, it's just their averages all reared much worse then other places. So what if a guy had a 112 box skunk streak. Many other hunters all over the country has had similar skunk streaks and that by no means proves anything about Loomis culling silver.

There was even someone on here from southern Arizona that stated they found plenty of silver in their boxes. Let's finally put this kind of thread to rest. Coin processing facilities are not culling silver. Most likely those areas just don't have people dumping silver back into circulation.

I will admit that it's possible for an employee to cull some silver, buts it's an entirely different thing to state that a coin facility is culling every single silver coin ever made and also all buffalo and very nickel. It would have to be one he'll of a conspiracy if Loomis was doing it. They would have to be paying off pretty much every employee in the facility to keep there mouth shut. Image the bags of coins they would have to sneak out. Then they would have to sell large amounts and explain how they got such large amounts. Doesn't anything over 10k have to be reported? All it would take was for someone to check the bank records or tax documents of employees of the Loomis place to see if anyone there has sold a large amount of precious metals.

Loomis is ran by seperate divisions in different areas. Each area has a site manager or president (whatever you want to call it - Head Honcho, El Jefe, El Patron, etc). They make decisions for that area. If the head guy wants to install a new coin sorter like a coin star machine, he can. No one at the CEO or COO level is gonna tell him "no". The manager can claim that it's for getting rid of foreign or token coins and I'm sure the top brass are not going to question it. The responsibility of those facilities is to count money, as long as the numbers are accurate and they don't get complaints, they are not liable for culling. Would the CEO care if the facility was culling coins? No as long as it's accurately counting everything. Employees are not going to say anything about their boss culling silver since it's not going to get them anywhere anyhow. They can't and are not allowed to cull coins so what is the benefit of them snitching on their boss? Plus if they snitch on their boss, they can easily lose their jobs or be retaliated upon in a different way. Trust me, I know all about employment retaliation. Although illegal in CA, it happens all too often and the State Labor (DLSE) commission is too backlogged to enforce any of it. The only way to really resolve an employer retaliation case is to get an attorney. Lowly facility workers are not gonna bother and it's not worth any of the headache to say anything. Plus, I'm guessing AZ is one of those employer friendly states so laws aren't gonna protect them so much if they snitch.

I seriously doubt that one facility gets 10 k face in silver a day. My guess is probably around $100-200 face a day. Not hard for the culled coins to be thrown in bucket and head manager inspects it later. There's always places in every building that doesn't have a camera. No cameras are probably in offices of the managers. LOL. Unless, there's complaints of inaccurate counting, no one will complain about any of it.

Of course, I'm only taking the OP and jrf30 at their word. I don't live in AZ and so I can't verify either way. (Not moving there after I heard this. LOL) Another poster stated that he's in southern AZ and still gets silver. Where in the state? I dunno. From the totality of the circumstances mentioned here, it sounds like it's done locally at just the Phoenix - Tuscon facilities for Loomis. Perhaps the member in Southern AZ is getting his coins from another vender or is just in a different area of southern AZ.

I would suggest that the OP tries a different vender other than Loomis and sees what results he gets. If the OP gets the same results, I would move if CRH is your favorite hobby/#1 thing in life. As a customer, you are entitled to complain though, it may not go anywhere but you can if you believe culling is occurring. Complain that the employees there are doing it (most likely not but more likely the manager of the facility) and perhaps the COO level people at Loomis might look into it. The manager is most likely personally benefiting from the arrangement and is violating company policy. The culled silver coins have to go somewhere. I'm sure they don't go into the trash.