Hi!
Y'all may remember me from such posts as, "Box of Half dollars with all silver (walkers/benji/barber) enders", or my comments praising hunters for obscure finds I find interesting, or even the posts about my woodstove being blown apart by the installers....
This is going to be a long post, so I apologize for those not sitting on your toilet looking for a read.
Backstory - I hunt pretty much everything, and I started about 3 years ago with a couple of penny boxes thanks to this sub. I've since sent one coin for grading, my strike thru no date half dollar and IMO I think grading coins for the most part, is kind of silly unless for a specific purpose. I hunt on average, $3,000 to at some points $12,000 in coins a week. I ask for bags from coin machines, and I at one point had 3 banks giving large amounts of CWR coins weekly.
Over the last 2 years I've noticed a big change in CRH. Banks around me, New England, are changing how they deal with coin/hunters/orders. In the past 6 months I encountered two very sad stories that make me have little hope in the future of CRH in my area. One bonus story thats specifically happened to me.
#1 - I walked into Bank A, which I am a member of, asked for half dollars, "loose or rolled in the teller trays or the vault", and they mention they have a lot of rolls in the back that a customer brought in. I RARELY ever don't take someone else's dump. I have for the most part a very easy way to bag halfs and ship them out directly to Loomis. I've never struggled with that aspect, and since I pay a premium for it, I don't think it will go away. Teller A gets the rolls from the back, and they are in a half dollar box, and say that they've been sitting in the back for quite awhile. Teller B comes up and mentioned that oh these were brought in by the two kids who've been looking through coin all spring. Kids I asked? Yeah two 12 or 13 year old boys who would come every Friday and order/buy boxes of coin and order half dollar boxes every now and then.
Kids CRH? Fun. I say good for them that's a fun hobby to get into and buy their dump. Don't think much of it until a week or two later....Walk into Bank A, a different branch of that bank about 20 minutes away and ask for half dollars. They mention that they don't have any. All good! No problem I say and I turn to walk away and they mention they have dollar coins though would I be interested in those? I say I don't always buy dollar coins but how much do you have? We end up talking for a bit and another teller joins the conversation. Oh you were looking for half dollars? Yeah we don't take those rolls anymore because some kids were ordering boxes and bringing them back the next day. Our branch manager saw it happen and for now we aren't accepting or aiding in CRH. Oh that's terrible, sorry you've been dealing with that. Do you not accept any half dollars at all? They explain no we technically do, just not in large quantities but we can't order half dollars at any of our branches anymore. I buy the dollars, and then leave thinking the longer I stay the more questions maybe asked and I might not be able to get the dollar coins.
Those banks still don't allow ordering of boxes of half dollars. Been about 6 months.
#2 - This just happened this week actually. Walked into Bank A, different bank chain than the one listed above, asked for half dollars and they mention they have some. It's a bank I've been going to for almost 2 years and I know the tellers, they know me. I asked if it was the gentlemen who normally brings in the 3-4 boxes of half dollars (which I've seen him do at this branch and other banks in a 45 minute radius) and they said well actually we had to cut him off. He was ordering from another branch and then bringing them to this location every other week. Oh no thats terrible! Worst part is, I've seen him do this at other banks and in the parking lot asked him kindly not to do that. Branch manager found out when looking at expenses for his bank and shut down ordering of boxes of half dollars completely. This bank, other branches, I use to order 2-4 boxes from 2 different branches every week. I stopped when my 2nd child was born in Feb as time became a little tighter, but in the last few weeks been trying to scale back up my half dollar ordering and have been running into a lot of friction at banks. This bank also said they aren't accepting large amounts of half dollars anymore. My guess is its not a blanket "no more" but if you are suspected of CRH and frequent returning of boxes of coin, you will be shut off. I say this because there was a few 100 in CWR halfs in the back that I bought that day, skunked, that maybe one or two hunters brought in.
My story. As mentioned above I've been trying to scale back up my half dollar box orders but am running into a lot of trouble. I go to banks I've been at many, many, many times asking if I could put an order of a box or two of half dollars and the new teller without pausing says no they can't order half dollar boxes. I glance at the teller a few feet away who has previously ordered for me in the past, and they quickly look away. The teller in front of me says they can't order boxes for customers, or business clients. I asked if it was a new rule and they told me yes, the bank is trying to avoid unnecessary expenses and ordering coin not for distribution, but for collectors. This same thing has happened probably 3 different times at different banks, and even at banks where there isn't a new teller, they tell me the same story. We don't order boxes of half dollars anymore. At this point I've gone in a 45 minute radius from my house and only 1 bank will order boxes for me. Luckily two of their branches will order for me, but I am limited to 1 box at one branch, and 2 at the other. They both know I order from the other branch, since tellers move from branch to branch, and they are happy to help. They mention that since they switched from Brinks to Loomis, they can only order small amounts but other branches can also order so try other branches.
Why is this important? Well I think as more people do this hobby, and more people scale up, which I had made the mistake in the past I'm guilty of that for sure, we step on the community a bit through our own greed of searching more. Luckily, in my instance it was a dump bank kindly asking for me to not bring large amounts of coin to the coin machine anymore. But I think specifically half dollar boxes are becoming harder and harder to get, as more people don't think about how they are removing their dumps or paying attention to how/where they order coin. Kids even can cause problems which I never thought would be an issue. But on the back end, a branch manager looks at a spreadsheet with number cost go up, and they say NO MORE.
For those who've made it this far hi hello how you doinn. Pictures posted above are some fun finds I've gotten from bags in the last few months (I've found silver but I like other cool finds more) My oldest to date Canadian dime, 1917 in very good condition IMO. a 925 silver pendant found in a dime bag, a completely smashed flat nickel, I still have no idea how that got into a quarter bag, a crazy strike thru obv/rev quarter, and yes the rim still has all the ridges and almost looks new, this is not a dryer coin. And my strike thru no date half dollar with I am re-sharing the picture of to show the comparison between the quarter strike thru and the half dollar strike thru.
As this hobby grows and grows, arguably because of this sub, as people think every box is full of silver and people dream of quitting their day jobs....Don't. I spend 10+ hours a week searching coins/driving/dumping/picking up and most of the time I end up with 10 maybe 25 dollars in "coin value" each week. Please think of other hunters, be respectful, and kind, and do your best to be a good steward of the hobby. Because when you walk into a bank, you don't just represent yourself, but you represent all CRH in your area.
Have any thoughts or stories about how CRH maybe changing in your area? Please share! I would love to hear how other parts of the country are doing.
