Does anyone call ahead?

davew0710 · Oct 16, 2009

Curious here. Does anyone call banks before heading out on a road trip to see if they have any halves? If so, what kind od reception do you get?

Rich Hartford · Oct 16, 2009

Once in a great while in an out of the way place. The reception I get is pretty good now that I have a new cellphone, but once in a while I'll hit a deadzone :laughing7:

d2arcing · Oct 16, 2009

yes and I ask for them to read me the dates, and I will hold if they are busy.

jk no but had to post that

Rich Hartford · Oct 16, 2009

Dave, I have called ahead a few times and the tellers were helpfull. But I only do this at out of the way places, that are a long drive away.

silvercop · Oct 16, 2009

i have been calling ahead now the last couple of times. that way i know which banks will sell to me and which ones wont. if i have a teller tell me they have halves and when i get there they pull the old "do you have an account here?" question i always reply no, but i called over here and the teller did not mention that was a requirement, if she had i would not have driven 50 miles here. then they go and get the halves. it also saves time if you have alot of banks to cover in a town. when ever i go some place i go to mapquest and get a list of all the banks in the town, and credit unions too and cold call them a day ahead. you get the same kind of reactions on the phone as you do in person. some just say no to get rid of you, others ask if you are a customer, and sometimes i am placed on hold while they say they are checking to see if they have any. i often wonder how many actually check. this method is a good way to zero in on a dump bank too. i have often found that if a bank has more than 200.00 on hand then it is somebody's dumps. alot of the tellers will respond with something like "someone picked them up the other day" or "we have someone that comes in here every week asking for halves". if you start getting those kind of responses then you can bet someone is working that area.

Kantuckkeean · Oct 16, 2009

I never call ahead. I figure it's harder to say "no" to a face than to a phone. I probably would if it was far out of my way though. I often find that the tellers give very little help to unusual requests in person. I can't imagine they'd give me much help over the phone. For example, I went to one today, and the teller said "I've got $3.50". They were the loosies in her tray, one of which was silver. So, I said, "I was hoping for more than that, you don't have any more in the vault?" She then has to turn around in her swivel chair and look at a piece of paper, which tells her....there's $350 more in the vault. Part of the $350 was $100 dollars in a bag that a customer had brought in that held a '57 Franklin, 2 x '64, and 10 40%ers. If I just called, and hadn't been there and asked IN PERSON, I'd've probably passed on that bank thinking they just had the $3.50.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

joad · Oct 16, 2009

I call when it's out of the way as well. I have a smalltown bank, that consistently produces, about 50 miles out of the way and they always tell me if there are any in the vault.

Yinzi50 · Oct 17, 2009

d2arcing said:
yes and I ask for them to read me the dates, and I will hold if they are busy.

jk no but had to post that

Funny it is. But this did happen to me once. I called over and the guy had four dollars worth. Then he asked me what's the date that I wanted. I said "you tell me what do you have". The guy proceeded with "68, 69, 72, etc". I immediately rushed to my car and sped to the bank. Once I got there, I also checked with the vault teller and other tellers. She had $40 worth. In summary, I got over 20 pieces including some 90%ers. Oh, boy, I just love to find a bank where not a single teller cares about silver. :icon_sunny:

myprecious · Oct 17, 2009

"Oh, boy, I just love to find a bank where not a single teller cares about silver. "

Seems to be getting rarer and rarer to find one where they don't cherrypick.
That's why i do sealed Fed bags. Or the ladies would pick it clean before i even showed up.

I chat with many tellers openly about my finds now, since they often ask...and they always ask me when i return coins "if there's anything good in there". They come across some great stuff themselves al of the time from uninitiated depositors.

maine_Jim · Oct 17, 2009

I often call the distant cities to decide which way to head on my road trips. If I get a few banks to say they have $50 or more then I'll head out that way.

Occasionally I'll get there and they'll be surprised when I say I'd called about the halves. Obviously they thought the person that had called was their local "candy man" and not a stranger to their fine establishment. They know they are kinda on the hook to produce the coins and usually do.

I have had some good luck this way but usually the next trip to this bank is not so successful and even the next time I call I am given the cold shoulder....what I do know is that the local "candy man" is gonna be left empty handed that week in that distant city - :headbang:

Maine_Jim

Rich Hartford · Oct 18, 2009

One time I hit a bank asking for halves. The teller asked me if I was the fellow that called earlier asking for halves. I lied and said I did. Got a few keepers too.
I felt terribly guilty. But the feeling passed after a couple of minutes.

AGCoinHunter · Oct 19, 2009

Rich Hartford said:
One time I hit a bank asking for halves. The teller asked me if I was the fellow that called earlier asking for halves. I lied and said I did. Got a few keepers too.
I felt terribly guilty. But the feeling passed after a couple of minutes.

Yea, I would feel bad for all of about 2 seconds then on to the next bank. Cant let feelings get in the way.

Holmes · Oct 19, 2009

When i can spend a whole day hunting i use the GPS and call all the banks in a certain area to see which ones have half dollars ( write them down and than i can hit those banks ) than i can type in the next city and do the same thing ( but than again on days i get the whole day to hunt i like to hit 1/4 of the state of Michigan! ) So in summary i call when its far way and i have alot of other stops im trying to make!

maine_Jim · Oct 19, 2009

Decided to hit a few banks today so I grabbed my phone list and started calling around. On the sixth call they say they've got $60 in halves :headbang:

This is an amount that has often paid off for me. Too small for a dump, about right for a small collection to be dumped.

Hit the road and half an hour later I was leaving the bank with $6.50 in loose (one 40%) - and six rolls. Got in the car and peaked in one roll, blazing white!. Poured it out and was about 2/3 40% coins. Four rolls were like this - hit a couple other banks in the area and got a couple more partial rolls. Totaled out at 64 40% and 7 90%. Took about 90 minutes! Just proves that sometimes the phone can pay off well as I really had no intention of hitting this area today.

Maine_Jim