August 19th finds:
3 banks, 3 scores.
I got a call from one of my banks today and the teller said that she had “lots of US $2s”. So naturally, I went out and picked them up. This lot of 22 $2 notes is mostly from 1976 with a few later dates sprinkled in. Overall, nothing special and no star notes.
On the way back from picking up the $2s, I decided to do a “cold call” at a branch that I have never visited before. I explained what I was doing to the teller and she said “we have bills, but not many old ones”. I said that I would look at everything and the teller seemed hesitant to open up the mutilated pile.
She offered me the chance to claim some paper notes but she insisted that I give her a dollar figure…so I said $100 please.
She then proceeded to pull out $100 worth of $5s and $10s and told me that she “cannot give out the $20s, $50s or $100s.”
I figured that my request was odd for this teller and so I did not object and took what was offered to me. One note stood out…a GOG prefix birds $5.
Finally, the third bank I visited this afternoon was very accommodating; the teller let me look through the mutilated notes and I took a few. She also sold me $6.85 worth of pennies! $6.85/hour was Ontario’s adult minimum wage when I was a teenager. (The student minimum wage at that time was $6.40/hour!)
I’ll probably end up returning most of the Canadian notes but it was worth trying some untested branches to see what they would give me.
Probably the most exciting souvenir from this day of bank hunting was this TTC bus transfer I obtained this morning…with the serial number 1! Two of the banks I visited today were in downtown Toronto and taking transit was cheaper than paying for parking.
I wonder if the transfer will be worth a premium in the future?
Enjoy!
Dean
