Someone Raided Dad’s Piggy Bank

What would you do if you went to the bank and got a cache of half dollars that all came from the same bank customer and found that most of them were either 40 percent or 90 percent silver? Count your lucky stars, or try to find out who cashed them in so that you could return them to their rightful owner?

I found a thread on CoinTalk that considered this question. The original poster (OP) had gone to several banks asking for any half dollars. He had had no luck until he came to a bank where the teller told him she had $9.50 in half dollars.

“Obviously, I took them all,” he wrote. When he got home and looked at them, he was surprised to find what appeared to be a proof Bicentennial half, one 90 percent silver 1964-, and 15-40 percent silver halves of various dates.

“I realized what had happened. Someone robbed daddy’s piggy bank ...Sadly, I know what I have to do... So tomorrow I’ll call [the bank] to see if anyone came in looking for the coins. Of course, I’ll return them if someone claims them. I’d be [upset] if someone had taken mine.”

The first person to respond wrote, “I admire your ethics, but I’ve heard of lots and lots of silver strikes at banks (and had a few myself), and I’ve never heard of anyone coming [back] to a bank looking for silver coins [mistakenly turned in]. I think it’s a lot more likely that someone was cleaning out a deceased (or not deceased) parent’s cabinets and found some halves tucked away.”

After other similar comments, the OP wasn’t convinced, writing, “...for a teller to have $9.50 in halves and $8.50 were silver seems a bit too pat for me.... Think I’ll call the bank just in case.”

Other posters wrote about the downsides to calling or taking the halves back to the bank. “The odds are against you for finding the owner, [and] I’ll take face silver anytime. If you think that much [19 halves] would cause suspicion, [another] member found 100 silver quarters once.”

This caused other members to relate their experiences. “I once got three rolls of halves that were mostly silver, with a lot of 90 percent. The teller said an old guy had been bringing them in. I never caught them at the right time again, though.”

“Another teller told me of an elderly woman who brought in a bunch of Morgan dollars. The teller told her a coin shop would pay her a lot more than face value, but the woman said she ‘didn’t trust coin shops.’ Not everyone views coins the same way we do.”

Another responder noted, “Many people have coin jars. At some point, for many reasons, those coin jars get turned in.”

That comment reminded me of my own coin jars. I actually have two containers, one with all the pennies my wife and I have picked up in parking lots or found in CoinStar machines and the other with dimes for our grandchildren. Of course, there are no coins with numismatic or bullion value in either container. Hopefully, no one will get the impression that our coins are worth looking through.

More reasons that bullion or numismatic coins might be taken to the bank followed. For example, one poster wrote, “It could be that someone got hard up for cash and decided to cash in a few of their lower value coins. In the old days when I worked in a convenience store, I used to see that a lot, particularly around the holidays.”

“Some people get desperate and use the cash they have lying around to pay for outrageous food costs and utilities.” This poster then added, “I can’t even afford this internet.”

“An alcoholic in need of a drink would turn them in [to a bank]. Some liquor stores won’t take change.” “Sometimes a vindictive spouse turns in silver out of spite!”

Echoing the comment about change being used to fuel an addiction, a poster wrote, “I get silver dimes quite a bit from the discount cigarette trailer near the trailer park. You’d be surprised just how many people really don’t care or don’t know about silver coins.”

To further illustrate just how little interest most people have in coins, the poster told about his experience with trying to get people he knew to look for the W quarters released into circulation beginning in 2019. “Heck, I told everyone I know, family, friends, co-workers, about the W quarters released in 2019-2020. NOBODY I know even bothered to look for them. Nobody, even knowing it was worth at least a $5 bill or more each. Most folks just don’t care and don’t want to put in any effort to look at things.”

Back in my coin searching days in the late 1950s, I remember going through a $50 bag of pennies and coming across several rolls of old Wheaties. The rolls were filled with Lincolns from the teens, 20s, and 30s. The coins weren’t in high grades, but they weren’t dogs either. Surely, someone had pulled them out of circulation over time and then perhaps decided they weren’t valuable enough to keep or try to sell. It never occurred to me to take them back to the bank and try to return them to their owner.

I recall one time fairly recently when I alerted the owner of some coins that I could have pocketed and thought “Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers.” I was waiting in line to return something at Walmart for a refund. At our Walmart, the service area also contains a CoinStar machine. I watched a young woman feed her change into the machine and then walk away with her cash/credit minus a fee, of course. When I got to the CoinStar, I checked the return slot as I always do and found that the person had left behind several dollars that had been rejected.

Without hesitation, I tracked the woman down in the store and alerted her to all she had left behind, and she returned to retrieve it. Of course, if I hadn’t seen the person leave the money, then I would have had the kind of dilemma of the OP: Do I pocket the coins or take them to the service desk to be returned to the owner if she came back looking for them? In this case, she had no clue that she had left anything behind, so there would have been no reason for her to come back.

What would you do, or have you done, in situations like this? How honest are you when it comes to coins? It never hurts to be “too honest.”