Dean’s finds

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

May 6th finds:

It’s been a few days since my teller contacts have reached out to me but today I got an email from one of them asking me to come in and check through some notes before they were sent out.

I searched through one bundle each of $100s, $50s, $20s, $10s and $5s and I noted that within those bundles of mutilated notes, most of them were polymers!

I saved the best of the lot...Granted, there wasn’t much in terms of older or rare notes, but along with some decent journey notes, I saved a 1975 $100 note with prefix JC and a short run journey $100 note, prefix BJZ.

Enjoy!

May 15th finds::

One of my banks offered me this little group of notes today.
Five Lawson/Bouey 1979 $20s, a nice 1975 $100 and journey $50, a nice birds $100 and an American $2.

Finds have been slower as of late and I was happy to accept these notes.

May 18th finds: Yet another collection dump.

A teller contacted me today and said that I should drop by the branch because someone had turned in “a bunch of really crispy notes.”

I was not expecting this...

A *MR from 1973
Two consecutive *B/M modified $1 notes from 1954 AND two consecutive *B/M notes from 1967!
12 gem UNC consecutive 1973 $1.
5 regular serial number 1967 notes, (2 consecutive)
8 1867-1967 notes.
Three 1954 $1 notes.
A 1954 $2 in EF condition, (this was the lowest grade note in the lot!)
Seven 1974 $2...( two consecutive three letter prefix notes and five of them are 2 letter prefixes!)

I asked the teller to contact me right away if any more notes like this come in; she said she would...
According to the teller, “some older man” came in and deposited all of these notes.

I am blown away once again by what people are depositing at face value...

Nice unc repeater from the atm today

May 22nd finds:

The teller at the bank where I got my finds on May 18th called me back and said that the same “older gentleman” deposited a few more “really crispy notes”.

This is what I picked up.

This is what I picked up.

-you're on another roll: congrats on such great FV pick ups!

Nice unc repeater from the atm today

-looking good 'AlbertaGuy!'

June 10th finds:

Well, after over two weeks with absolutely no finds, I was beginning to think that the party was over…until I went into one of my regular banks and picked up these notes:

A birds $20, two 2001 $10 notes, one of which is an FDZ sheet replacement note signed by Knight & Thiessen and the other is also a replacement note from the FEC prefix!

The topper today was a birds $5 marked with whereswilly.com.

I entered the information and my hit was the first and only hit in the 18+ years since the person entered the bill into the system!  The bill originated in Hamilton and was first entered in February, 2003!

The hunt is back on…

June 11th finds:

When it rains, it pours!
I got a call from one of my banks today to come and see some “old banknotes that are in really nice condition” as the teller described them to me.

I was blown away by this lot…24 uncirculated multicoloured $1 notes, 16 of which are the BFC prefix.  The neat thing about these notes is that someone saved pairs of notes so the second last digit of the serial number is 0, 1, 2,3,…all the way to 9.

The other prefixes in this find are BCW (two of these) ACW (four of these, one of which has an ink smear that looks like it is from the original printing process) and ACJ (two of these).

I wonder why I am seeing so many uncirculated notes being turned in lately.  It is not a coincidence because this lot was picked up from a different bank than the other UNC notes that I have found.

I have a feeling that many collections are being emptied out as the pandemic rages on and some people have no choice but to cash in notes that they have held on to for decades for only face value.  On a more sinister note, I wonder if some of these notes were stolen from collections and then deposited?

It’s sad to think that these notes were once treasured by somebody and it makes my quest to rescue paper money from the banknote redemption process that much more important.

-Great finds & thanks for keeping us posted.

I have a feeling that many collections are being emptied out as the pandemic rages on and some people have no choice but to cash in notes that they have held on to for decades for only face value.

-I'm sure you right- in that these older series you're getting must be from collections or SDB or someone who was about to start a collection. It could also be a parent of a departed university student (spring clean up), a partner (etc) of someone who would never see them as collectible who's depositing them. To those who don't collect, "it's only money." 

Yesterday, I thought I'd try my luck with a friendly teller at my branch & asked if he had any banknotes returned (paper) recently and of course the answer was 'no.'  As I left, I was a bit shocked that one of the customer service reps overheard me & then offered to call me if she had anything come in.  I doubt it will actually materialize, but it was a nice gesture (the thought that counts). I'm still working on trying to get some of the staff to help out but its been an uphill battle with so many new staff (high turn-over rate).

And today, I took out 50 Tens and one was FFC 6666966 (near solid) & the other a repeater so I was pretty happy with that (as I can go months without anything).

I was blown away by this lot…24 uncirculated multicoloured $1 notes, 16 of which are the BFC prefix.  The neat thing about these notes is that someone saved pairs of notes so the second last digit of the serial number is 0, 1, 2,3,…all the way to 9.

From experience I've learnt that when you see unc notes and they have a repeating skip pattern then its usually come from an estate settlement or some such divining up of the collection. In this case, the person doing the diving would divide up the pile by doling out two to each of the recipients of which I would guess there were 5 at this event.

I've seen this and had a few occasions where each of the recipients eventually came in after the settlement of a will and I was able to reconstitute the bundle or the run of notes.

June 16th finds…part 1

I managed to get a whole slew of notes from two banks.

The first bank yielded a wide assortment of notes; from 1954 modified all the way up to a couple of journey notes.  The highlights of this lot were several birds $2 in AU, two 1973 $1 replacement notes, a birthday note (1911983…January 19, 1983) and a 1954 $1000 note.

Of course, the $1000 note has two staple holes in it.  I have a feeling that tellers used to staple $1000 notes together when they were received to prevent losing them.  I have seen several $1000 notes that have been stapled and it is not common to see staple holes in other denominations.

Part 2 follows…

June 16 finds part 2:

My pickup from the second bank of the day was less impressive but interesting in its own way.  The teller told me that the person who deposited the notes “didn’t even take them out of the plastic”.  Most of the notes are in clear plastic sleeves and this lot was most likely deposited by a collector who is paring down the lower grade “spenders “ out of his collection.

The highlight of this lot was a 1954 $5 note.

Enjoy!

June 25th finds:

My local bank did not disappoint me today.  My friendly teller not only gave me a “bunch of ones and twos” (in her words), but also said “I have a hundred rolls of pennies if you want them”.

I took 50 rolls of pennies with the notes and I also asked if she had any $10 notes.  In her register, the teller gave me six 2017 commemoratives, one of which is worn, but the other five are AU/UNC.  There was one nice 2013 polymer ten in the pile so I took it as well.

The teller promised to keep the other 25 rolls of pennies for my next visit.  I forgot how heavy they were!


The paper notes are spenders and I’d say that the highlight of this lot is the group of nice 2017 $10s.  One of the $1 notes had someone’s name written on it.  See my other topic “banknotes with a story” for my thoughts on that note…

Enjoy!
Dean

June 29th finds:

Well, the banknote gods smiled on me today…
I braved a torrential downpour in a thunderstorm to travel to one of my banks and I was rewarded with 25 consecutive 1974 $2 notes.

They are absolutely stunning and they have the ARD prefix which was the second last prefix of these notes to be printed.

Enjoy!

July 8th finds:

I returned to my local bank to retrieve the remaining penny rolls that the teller was saving for me and she surprised me with these additional bank notes.

Nothing too special, but I did get five nice birds $20s and a 1954 modified $10 as highlights of this lot.