I'm ending this topic because of people's inability to read. It was a rant, and some thought I was angry at bank tellers because they couldn't provide silver eagles. It was because 4 out of the 5 of the teller's I spoke to have a huge lack of knowledge of the legal tender in this country. So now I will do the evil banana dance

Clive walks up to bank:

Excuse me, do you have any Cnut Pennies?

Certainly sir! *Produces a huge bag of them just for me*


Back to the real world, I know what you mean. I resort to eBay and sorting through loads and loads of handfuls of change. If at first you don't succeed, then move on to Medieval hammered coins.

Clive.

Kris, I hope you picked up some $1 coins or halves for your troubles and the banker tellers!

No I had tunnel vision from my determination to avoid shipping charges on single silver American Eagles. when you buy one by one those shipping charges add up!

"I've read that many of the men and women on this forum can go to a bank and get bullion coins"

Not sure who posted that you can get bullion coins from a bank, banks only carry circulating coinage.

A bank I have done business with in a small rural California town sold SAE's, but it is a three branch bank. I have never seen them for sale anywhere else.

Ditto. If I was a bank manager, there's no way I would keep an item that fluctuates in value. It's bad business. Most banks detest handling foreign exchange for the same reason. (My bank to use an example charges $25 on any foreign exchange transaction)

Because I live in an area where lots of Canadians come over to shop, visit family etc, Canadian currency is pretty freely traded here in banks, especially lately with it appreciating against the dollar. Sometimes with coins it is up to the people in the individual branches discretion, I know one branch of my bank will take coin, even loonies and twoonies. We have lots of Ontario license plates in our shopping malls etc. Thank you Canada, you are true friends, and keep at least our local economy vibrant.

We also have lots of Canadians who come here to shop. Since we have no sales tax, they love it here in New Hampshire. And the banks only charge a small fee to change Canadian to US. Not sure what they charge for other currencies

I've never seen or heard of ASE's sold at a bank.

me either... its not something that is common practice for banks. If it is a small private bank..... maybe... or if one of the bigger chain banks is running a promotion for them.... but other then that.. barring some dum dum turning one in for a dollar... banks wont have silver eagles... you'll have to get them from a coin dealer if you dont want to pay shipping...

Actually I have "fave" tellers, like the one in one of my banks yesterday that afforded me the three Ike dollars, rather a sacrifice for her as she saves them too. So I owe her one of my deuces that I got at the other bank, since she likes those too. Have to cultivate these relationships, they can be mutually beneficial whence you find someone that likes $2 bills and other interesting stuff. She "accidentally" ordered a brick of $2 bills a couple of weeks ago too:) She has been good about saving those narsty pre-1970 halves as they come across too.

Wow your really lucky! I should step up my game and see what I can get from my bank!

I can understand your frustration with bank tellers, Kristofer. I went a little before Christmas for stocking stuffers and asked for dollar and half dollar coins and/or rolls, and the girl behind the counter told me "I don't think we're supposed to sell those, just the normal stuff."

Really? You think the bank manager got in those rolls of presidential dollars just to use as paperweights?



I've never asked for something like the silver eagles there, though... didn't ever occur to me that a bank might carry them. I guess I've always sort of subconsciously categorized them more as commems or token-type things than actual dollars, however incorrect that may actually be.

I saw some fellas on here in various European countries that said they could pick them up from their banks so I thought I'd take a shot at it in America. I lost. Anyways, I like the comment about not being allowed to sell those. That's pretty funny to hear.

Try to remember a few things before you knock a bank teller.
For one thing they really don't make a lot of money so why should they go out of their way to appease some nut they don't know asking for special items.
Many people go into a bank asking for something special during peak times, hold up lines of REAL customers and many want to cash thier pay checks, go home, write checks for bills. So here is this nut holding up everyone for possibly something the bank doesn't have.
If a bank does have odd ball items such as Silver Eagles, half dollars, $2 bills, they well may be in a main vault. Many tellers do not have access to that vault. They have to stop, lock up everything, ask a head teller to go to the main vault for this nuts special request which now holds up two bank individuals. Many tellers are instructed if during a busy time, tell the individual they don't carry those.
Many, many individuals treat a bank teller as if they were slaves to do their bidding so they sort of order them to get special items for them. Yeah, right.

I must say that was quite heated. This was more a satire on the banking system more than anything. But I find it funny that the term 'nut' is used to describe a guy who is seeking out silver, when everyone else is clamoring for their paper. To say peak hours you must mean all hours because of the miniscule hours that banks are actually open. And to say that asking them to walk twenty feet is to treat them as 'slaves doing our bidding' is insane in itself. Their job is to take money from you and put it into a box, or to take money from a box and give it to you. That would be like me saying it's insane for going to McDonalds and ask them to make me a sandwich without mayonnaise, It'll require extra effort but it's their job! I work in customer service and I get jerks all the time yelling at me, but it's my job. There's good parts and bad parts. If they were slaves they wouldn't have the option to get a better education to get a better job as I'm currently doing, especially if you live in America as I do where we're so fortunate to have government subsidized education.

If we want to discuss slaves I'll post some pictures of children in Africa that must work the worst of the worst jobs for miniscule pay to pay off debts left behind by their murdered parents. Here's a picture, this child makes 50 cents a day working from dawn to dusk:



I bet that child would adore being paid a fare wage for retrieving a coin rather than the 50 cents a day he earns by pouring and moving bricks. You can get the full story Here. So before we start pouncing on each other about how cruel we're being for getting frustrated at someone lacking knowledge that is standard in the industry, let's remember who's really being enslaved.

I was the nut this past weekend asking for half dollars and forcing the two bank tellers to the vault.

Good for you, did you get anything good?

I'm puzzled - why are you taking it out on the bank tellers? I don't remember that all world banks actually do sell commemorative coins or bullion coins but in Europe - it's another story. Traditionally, coins were marketed through the central and national banks if I am not mistaken and this is how this remains till this day. I'm not too sure how it is like in the US marketing but geez, quit talking about how hard it is to obtain silver bullion coins. You can still obtain silver coins in circulation if you are lucky whereas the rest of the world are already on nicupro or even cheaper metal coinages

Meh, I'm done dignifying these things with responses anymore, read the thread and you'd realize the issue isn't with whether they can provide the coins or not.