Dear James Wesley,
I have been wanting to get to a bank to make arrangements to buy nickels and pennies, but my normal workday and duties prevent me. Today I was finally able to do so.
I was told that the pennies came in “boxes” of $25 and the nickels in “boxes” of $100. The banker said he had to check on a recent fee hike. He came back with an a $0.20 per roll delivery fee.
But then he offered a “free” alternative. Their coin counting machine bags [loose] pennies with $50 in a full bag and $200 of nickels in a full bag. He thought that they filled the nickels bag 3-4 times per month at that branch. He asked me to leave my name an d number, and would call me when a bag was filled. He also suggested that if I don’t get a call for a week or so from them that I call and they check the current bag status. Even if the bag is not full, they would take what they had and “zero” the machine out with a new bag.
As I was leaving I asked, “can we check the current status?” and he said sure. He came back with one bag each of pennies and nickels. I bought them both.
We know why I bought the nickels, but why did I buy the pennies? I found online the manufacturer of a machine that sorts the “good” old [copper] pennies from the “bad” newer [copper-plated zinc] ones. The banker (with a smile) said that I should return the pennies that I didn’t want to a different branch. I’ll let you know how the machine works in a future e-mail.
Cheers, – Chris G. in Wisconsin