So now we have all this clad

[BioProfessor]

It seems we all collect our fair share of modern coins. Sadly, most of them come home looking like crap. Even when washed, you can hardly tell a dime from a penny and quarters seem like brown (or red) disks. What do you do with all this? In my experience, the banks don't like to take rolled coins. They don't know what is really there. Last time I did this, I had to fill out forms, put my name and address on each roll, etc. It was not so easy. Stores don't want them because they are too hard to identify and customers don't want change that is so dirty looking.

So does everybody but me own a tumbler? Do you have an "in" with the bank? Do you just keep filing up jars with them? What works for you?

Thanks,

Daryl

 

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[RON (PA)]

Daryl,

Don't feel bad, I don't have tumbler yet either. What I do with my clad (found money & pocket change) is to count it and roll it. I do it when the jar fills up. I just take it to the bank. Never had a problem with them accepting it. The bank I use is one where I have an account and have been a customer for 20+ years. Then again, I don't take alot either (no more than $20.00 at a time). I'm saving the real dirty coins in a jar for when I do get a tumbler, I'll have something to tumble. Hope it helps.

 

[Mirage]

My wife got a tumbler at a garage sale. I think they are normally about $50(kellyco). I like to wait until the end of the year when I'm snowed in. Then I sort, count and tumble it. The tumbling takes time. Most of the coins turn out good enough that you can roll them. I am still using my clad from last year for my coffee money. The guy who collects the money for the coffee club says he knows that I'm one of the paying customers because he can always identify my money.

 

[MTdutchpop]

Car wash Money
Vending Machines
Kids piggy banks
Don't have toll booths here but would LOVE to dump em there.
Video rentals. Slip em in.

They are piling up.

I actually have a retail store and don't dump the red dimes in my till as they end up being pennies. Quarters and nickels work in moderation.


No tumbler. Vinegar and salt works well on the pennies.

 

[erikk]

Buy stamps at the post office. I was told that if you feed the machine several dollars and then buy one stamp you will get the change in dollar coins.I haven't tried this yet but I feed every vending machine I can. Especially good when we go camping and wife goes to the laundry

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Yep. Garage sale tumbler with a bit of aquarium gravel and a dash of "Copper Brite" pot cleaning powder.

 

[Functional]

It seems we all collect our fair share of modern coins. Sadly, most of them come home looking like crap. Even when washed, you can hardly tell a dime from a penny and quarters seem like brown (or red) disks. What do you do with all this? In my experience, the banks don't like to take rolled coins. They don't know what is really there.

I wonder if you could get away with using a clear "stretch" wrap on coins?

Last time I did this, I had to fill out forms, put my name and address on each roll, etc. It was not so easy. Stores don't want them because they are too hard to identify and customers don't want change that is so dirty looking.

At least you didn't get the snide remarks uttered under they're breath about the change being stolen. I'm approaching 50 years old and some idiot manager at the customer service desk in a SafeWay store didn't like my trying to pay for some groceries with two rolls of quarters. I walked out without paying, leaving all the groceries at the checkout, then went shopping down the street.

So does everybody but me own a tumbler? Do you have an "in" with the bank? Do you just keep filing up jars with them? What works for you?

Thanks,

Daryl

I have two tumblers, but I'm getting more into nugget hunting as of this summer. Not enough places to coin shoot within a reasonable distance of the town I'm living in now, even with the beaches here. If I were to focus more on hunting coins by going the extra distance to historic areas around the nearest city and had more coinage to worry about, with what I've learned here, I'd use potato's for cleaning the pennies and I would try sudsy ammonia in my ultrasonic cleaner for the other clad.

I've also thought of trying to make a stainless steel basket to put clad in and dunk handfuls of clad at a time when using electrolysis. I wonder if anyone here has tried that yet?

F.

 

[txkickergirl]

I am going to get a tumbler also, but last night I took a handful of ugly clad and took the dremmel to it. Amazing they looked shiny and new again. I hate the way the brand new coins look they really turn to crap in no time at all, and the ones I find from the 70-80's are in better condition than last year quarters I pull out. So I am a happy dremmel girl now.

 

[Dinker]

Coinstar sometimes

I save change in a big jar for what I call "fishing money" It adds up quickly (I bought my DFX with one such jar). Since I have been hooked on the metal detecting hobby, I have added some coins we found. Many local grocery stores have Coinstar machines that take coins and give yuo a receipt to redeem at the checkout. for about .10 on the dollr there is no rolling and counting. I still don't like paying somebody to take money from me, but it is an option and it saves time.

 

[Green1]

i have a tumbler,, but i use coinstar...... for 8 cents on the dollar, and no backlash at all it's worth it to me...

 

[MUD(S.W.A.T)]

for now, I treat it like normal money. Spend it when I need it, roll it up and off I go. What I would like to do is of corse get a tumbler and then buy older silver coins with it or metal detector batteries.

Keep @ it and HH!!

 

[aa battery]

LOL guys i take my dirty clad to a local indian casino they take it with no problem going tonite.

 

[Ray S ECenFL]

I use a tumbler. Mix in some pea gravel or aquarium gravel, water some dish soap and let it tumble. Pea grave is much coarser then the aquarium gravel and works faster. Gets most of the dirt off. After cleaning, place the coins side by side on paper towels or an old bath tower and dry the tops. You can then roll them, spend them, Coinstar them or whatever you want to do. I use the quarters for local tolls. My wife uses the nickles on her rare trips on local gambling boat. The dimes and pennies go to Coinstar. I was using the dimes at the local post office for stamps, but they went to the new fangled credit card stamp dispenser. Next step is for the post office to open a loan department for you to buy stamps.

Yes, tumblers go for abut $50. You can find them a little cheaper than that if you shop around.

 

[Sheldius]

I've dropped off rolls of coins (also less than $20) at my Bank of America branch. They aren't known for good customer service, but I had no paper work, and I didn't have to put my account number on anything. I also know they don't check, because the rolls of nickels I picked up had a flattened penny, and Canada dimes and nickels in them. I just rerolled them and hope to break even. We will see how it goes when I drop off a box ($25 to $500 depending on coin type).

At a credit union I use to us in Washington state, I had to have my account number. Even then, it wasn't a big deal.

I'd say find a different bank if possible.

My wife also used some dug coins in a coke machine. So long as the shape/weight is right, they don't care a bit.

 

[Montana Jim]

I wash the dirt and mud off and take it in sacks to my CU. I tell them I want to cash in my metal detecting coins, that they look like hell but were not "dirty".

They dump them into the machine without blinking.

I walked out with "no backlash" clean cash.

Common, it's legal tender.

 

[Wimberley Digger]

Coinstar seems to be my best solution. Unfortunately, I don't cash in much for a lack of finds lately.
DFX Texan,
Randy.

 

[Boobydoo]

Personally, I have found over 2000 coins so far this season so I don't really worry about making them look pretty. I wash them after each hunt with water and and a scrungie if there are woodchip residue on them. Then, I will either take them to me credit union where they dump em in a coin hopper counter or I sometimes take them to Coinstar and pay the 8 cent a dollar surcharge. Some banks, like TCF, have free "Coinstar" type machines for their members to return coins at 0 surcharge. Good luck Prof!

Smiles!
BDoo

 

[BioProfessor]

Thanks for all the input guys (and gals if I can say that today and still be politically correct). It seems things may have changed since I was a "coin hunter" back in the days. I would travel in the summertime with my dad and some of the times between stops was pretty long. We would stop at a bank and get a "supply" of rolls of Lincoln cents for me to look through. I would spend the day with my books and the blue coin folders that you would fill up to have a complete date set. Never did get one completely filled. Anyway, I would roll them back up and exchange them at another bank for more. Kept me pretty occupied and cost practically nothing. It was pretty easy to do. Maybe since it was pennies, the bank didn't really care too much.

Later on in life, the wife and I found ourselves pretty poor. We had the normal change "dump" and it was our saving account. When we had to have groceries, gas, or whatever and had no money for it, we would dump out the "savings" and wrap rolls of what we had. That was when I experienced all the problems with the banks. They made it pretty difficult to exchange the rolls for dollars. Sign each roll. sign a form indicating how many rolls and what type etc. Maybe it was because we were exchaning more in rolled coins than we had in the bank that was the real problem. I don't know. Now with my new adventures with the metal detector, I suddenly have all this money (you know the 50 something cents an hour average thing we joked about) and I need to do something with. I just needed to know what everybody did with theirs since I'm just collecting now and haven't spent my entire 3 months take on a 24 pack of batteries. LOL

It seems that there is no longer an issue with the banks and their taking rolled coins. I just wonder what they do with them? Frankly I am embarrassed by the surface condition of some of the coins. I just feel funny about turning them in in such "bad" shape. Maybe I just have to get over it but I can just imagine someone in the bank unrolling them to put them in the change drawer and saying oh *^#!^#% that guy just turned in another roll of that crappy change he digs up out of the ground.

Maybe I'll try to build a "tumbler-like contraption" that will get them a lot better but not polished like a tumbler. That's my kind of machine and Red Green is my kind of man.

Oh well. Happy hunting and all this worry over $40 in change. I appreciate the time and effort it took to post.

Daryl

 

[Sheldius]

Hey, the mint loves to get those old coins back. They recycle them and don't have to pay mining companies for more nickel, zinc, and copper. So don't be embrassed at all. Help save the penny and nickel - use them.

HH.

 

[BioProfessor]

Hadn't thought about it that way. Maybe I could write - "Return to mint, crappy condition" and they wouldn't have to open them and rewrap them because they would lose customers if they gave them out in change.

As an aside, how's Athens? Going to school? I graduated 1987. Grew up in Elberton.

Daryl