Can someone explain bags to me? What are they, where do they come from, and where do I ask for one (the bank duh...)?
Depends on the bank and the denomination.
Some banks will get bags in when they order coin. This is fairly rare as most banks get boxed rolls but bags are the norm when dealing with large sized (silver-dollar sized) dollars (the small ones like the Sacajawea and SBA dollars will come in rolls and a box).
Most of the time bags will come off of the coin counter. Each bank and each counter has a different setting for when a bag fills. My pickup bank has it set as:
Pennies - $50
Nickels - $100
Dimes - $500
Quarters - $500
Halves - $1000
Dollars - $1000
But I've seen penny bags fill at $100 and nickels at $200, similarly I've seen bags of just $25 of pennies. Each bank can set their own bag limits and so there's no real "standard" bag the way that there are boxes.
It depends on how the bank is set up on if they can sell the bags to them. Since this is an unusual request (unlike boxes) some tellers might not know how to sell bags to you even though the bank is set up to allow it. Sometimes the bank simply isn't set up to handle buying bags (they might automatically "sell" the bag to the vault when it fills) and that's ok.
Keep in mind that bags are usually "off" sometimes its in your favour, sometimes its in the bank's. The important thing is to
NOT COMPLAIN about the bag being off. If you can't suck up and take a $50 loss, then buying bags isn't for you. You'll often find foreign coins, guitar picks, and other random crap in your bags along with play money and the wrong denomination. But, your chances of finding a jackpot score are much greater because if someone brings in a collection, its likely to just be dumped in the coin sorter. However, some sorters will reject silver and foreign coins, meaning searching through those bags are likely to be a useless endeavour.
You have to ask though, most of the time banks cannot sell you a partial bag, so wait until a bag has filled and then ask if you can buy it and see what they say. Some banks will let you, others won't.
The Canadian stuff you can eBay - that's what I do with mine.
