where do boxes come from anyway?

[Lucky Jack]

Ok, so I'm new to this CRH game but I've been scouring my local banks. I haven't done too badly, at least enough silver to get me hooked but I have not ordered a box of halves yet. At several banks I've bought rolls that were obviously machine rolled, probably about $1000 or so and every one of them was a skunk. So my question is where do the boxes that you order come from? The local mint? The Brinks/Loomis company warehouse? Do the banks roll their own at a central office and then distribute them to local branches?
Here's another one for you. Are there "better" banks to buy boxes from than others? What about localities, are rural area banks better than big city banks? At a couple of small farming towns I've hit the tellers have told me that there's someone else who checks in looking for halves from time to time also, that really surprised me but I guess this is not a new hobby either.
thanks for the help.

 

[cyberdan]

Every bank and every part of the country is different. Banks usually do not roll their own coins, to costly. For my part of the country (southwest) the vault teller orders coin once or twice a week from their armored car service and it is delivered in a few days. They can order most any denomination of coin. If a teller says she can not order halves she is either ignorant or lying. The carriers keep coin in "vaults" for each bank and pull from it when needed. I once personally saw Bank of America's "vault" it was a chainlink fence enclosed area inside a secure armored car building. It had skids of something inside with tarps covering it.

The carriers get loose coin deposited from local banks and re-roll it into their boxes. If they need more then they go to the Fed. Coins are constantly recirculating in their own region with coins being added and pulled all the time.

Yes, there are better banks to get boxes at but it all depends on your area. I have one bank that is great and two that I have stopped requesting at because of skunks.

 

[Lucky Jack]

Thanks for the info Cyberdan, I'm also on the left coast, Central Caliphornicator. I just got back from a little road trip, sometimes I get out of the office to check on company assets. So I stop by a new bank in a smallish town 30-40,000, they have about 5 different banks here so I thought it might be a good place to stop. The first bank I go to the teller says she's got $540 in halves that she's had for a long time. So I get real excited but I've only got $500 on me at the time, I say I'll take $500 and come back for the rest. She comes out of the vault with a box all taped up but as she pushes them across the counter I see the rolled edges of machine rolled coins through a crack in the box. Of course it's too late to back out now so I take them outside and open them up in the parking lot thinking that I'm probably looking at someone's dumps. What I got suprised me, a complete box of brand spankin new 2001-D's that look like they just came from the mint. Every gosh dang one of them had been opened and then closed up again. Talk about a skunk!!!!

 

[jim4silver]

Every bank and every part of the country is different. Banks usually do not roll their own coins, to costly. For my part of the country (southwest) the vault teller orders coin once or twice a week from their armored car service and it is delivered in a few days. They can order most any denomination of coin. If a teller says she can not order halves she is either ignorant or lying. The carriers keep coin in "vaults" for each bank and pull from it when needed. I once personally saw Bank of America's "vault" it was a chainlink fence enclosed area inside a secure armored car building. It had skids of something inside with tarps covering it.

The carriers get loose coin deposited from local banks and re-roll it into their boxes. If they need more then they go to the Fed. Coins are constantly recirculating in their own region with coins being added and pulled all the time.

Yes, there are better banks to get boxes at but it all depends on your area. I have one bank that is great and two that I have stopped requesting at because of skunks.

Cyberdan,

You hit on a topic that I have been trying to figure out since I started CRHing. That is, when coins are returned to the coin rolling company, let's say Brinks for example, do the coins all go into a central hopper where they are rolled and distributed to all banks the company services? Or, does the company segregate and store specifically each bank's own coins so when that particular bank orders coins, they are rolled from that bank's prior dumps?

If you can elaborate on this it would be great. It seems like you have been inside a coin rolling company and have some knowledge of this.

Jim

 

[cyberdan]

If you can elaborate on this it would be great. It seems like you have been inside a coin rolling company and have some knowledge of this.

Let me post a link to my visit to an armored car company.

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,98766.msg732252.html#msg732252

I went there last summer. I don't know much more than already posted.

 

[Silver_Fox]

What I got suprised me, a complete box of brand spankin new 2001-D's that look like they just came from the mint. Every gosh dang one of them had been opened and then closed up again. Talk about a skunk!!!!

I was wondering when somone would find those.
HH, S_F

 

[jim4silver]

Thanks for the info Cyberdan, I'm also on the left coast, Central Caliphornicator. I just got back from a little road trip, sometimes I get out of the office to check on company assets. So I stop by a new bank in a smallish town 30-40,000, they have about 5 different banks here so I thought it might be a good place to stop. The first bank I go to the teller says she's got $540 in halves that she's had for a long time. So I get real excited but I've only got $500 on me at the time, I say I'll take $500 and come back for the rest. She comes out of the vault with a box all taped up but as she pushes them across the counter I see the rolled edges of machine rolled coins through a crack in the box. Of course it's too late to back out now so I take them outside and open them up in the parking lot thinking that I'm probably looking at someone's dumps. What I got suprised me, a complete box of brand spankin new 2001-D's that look like they just came from the mint. Every gosh dang one of them had been opened and then closed up again. Talk about a skunk!!!!

I know that many here love to get hand rolls and loose coins. For me, the few times the hand rolls/loose halves have been good have been kick a$$ (once got 3 full rolls of 64s at one time). However, 99% of the time for me they are always skunks or maybe a 40% or two, after lots of drive time and groveling at banks I have never been to or don't have any accounts (not really groveling, but that weird "do you have any halves I could buy" feeling like they are looking at you as if you were an idiot or something).

I am now pretty much 100% into boxes. I figure that the boxes come from the same source as the hand rolls and loose (after the bank gets enough of them to send to Brinks or whomever). And I can get a big amount from the same place without driving all over town (my town or others' towns). I will from time to time stop in when I am in a rural town for business if the bank is by the highway or road I am on. But even lately doing this I find that CRHers from that local town are dumping hand rolls at these banks because they don't have coin counting machines.

But if it works for you to get hand rolls/loose, then stick to it. You gotta do what works in your particular area.

Jim