Do banks take canadian pennies?

999digger · Feb 7, 2011

I use to save canadian pennies, but I decided to take them to the bank. Most of these were from the string and son rolls. I mixed about 150 in with a bucket of change and took it to the bank. The teller picked out about half of them. None of these stick to a magnet, so why did she pick them out. Any Ideas?

fistfulladirt · Feb 7, 2011

Depends on your relationship with the bank. Some flat out refuse Canadian coin, with others it's not a problem.

CHAINCHOMP · Feb 7, 2011

did she at least give them back to u?

fiatfraud · Feb 8, 2011

heck, until the mid 90s, canadian pennies were copper.

their currency has been trading about on par with the dollar recently. canadian money is no longer the "junk" that it was once considered...

if you're searching for old pennies, you might as well be searching for canadian pennies!!!

SFBayArea · Feb 8, 2011

If you're in the U.S., take the pre-79 Canadian copper cents to get melted. Save up a bunch and get them recycled. Those have the most copper and are 98% copper. The Canadian government recycled all their old copper cents and only distribute junk steel ones now. Coin sorting facilities in Canada culled the coppers.

999digger · Feb 8, 2011

CHAINCHOMP said:
did she at least give them back to u?

Yes she gave them back to me. It took like fifteen minutes for her to take them out.

999digger · Feb 8, 2011

Are you guys saying that I should save all of my canadian pennies that I get? I used to just save the pre 1965 ones. If I do save canadian cents where can I get them melted, or is it illigal.

Bum Luck · Feb 8, 2011

My bank won't take them.

They sort out in the counter.

JT10 · Feb 8, 2011

I get Canadian cents all the time in rolls. I wished I had started keeping track. It get more in the customer wrapped rolls than the machine rolls, but they still turn up frequently in the machine rolls.

I found a bank locally that has a coin counter, but it is back in the teller area. I cull all the Canadian cents because I don't know how they will run through the counter. I have collected so many that I broke down and ordered the Whitman Canadian cents folders. Lets see how long it takes me to fill them up from my US coin rolls

quiksilver · Feb 8, 2011

Correct me if im wrong but i thought pre 97 pennies are copper

JT10 · Feb 9, 2011

quiksilver said:
Correct me if im wrong but i thought pre 97 pennies are copper

They are. I am saving those for that reason as well. But there were several composition changes throughout the years, so they don't have the exact copper equivalent as US cents. The early ones have more copper than US, and the later ones have less.

SFBayArea · Feb 9, 2011

999digger said:
Are you guys saying that I should save all of my canadian pennies that I get? I used to just save the pre 1965 ones. If I do save canadian cents where can I get them melted, or is it illigal.

As far as I know, there is no U.S. law that says you cannot melt foreign coins (that is if you live in the U.S.). Why would the U.S. government care whether another country's coins get melted or not? We have enough of our own problems to deal with. There is a U.S. law that says you can't melt U.S. pennies and nickels but that's U.S. coins only. Canada made copper pennies all the way up to 1996 but the ones in 1979 or before have the most copper 98% which is higher than the U.S. ones. We've had this discussion here before.. take it to a metal recycling facility and see what they say. You'd better have a lot.