Dean’s finds

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Man you should buy a lottrey ticket.

Jan 8th finds.
One of my teller contacts called me this morning and said to drop by the branch.
She had these 1954 $1000 notes waiting for me.   

Jan 8th...an afternoon call from one of my banks yielded ten crisp birds 20s some journey 10s and a multicoloured 10.

Jan 12th finds:
A devil's face $1, a low print run 1954 Beattie Rasminsky *A/B (Torn and taped!    )
A $1000 note and a nice group of AU Journey notes, along with some spenders.

Awesome finds.  That EET is really something.  I wonder if whoever had it knew what they had only to have a clueless family member cleaned out their drawers for them.  Keep posting these.  Makes my day every time.

Do you keep all the 1000s?  If I knew anyone wanted them I had a whole pile of EF/AUs that I had to got rid of recently.  I only kept the four nicest ones which ended up grading 66 EPQ .  Made me think I should have kept more.

Do you keep all the 1000s? 

I sell most of what I find and that includes the $1000 notes.  $1000 note collectors are few, but there are people who will buy them. 

Finding a 1935 or 1937 $1000 for face value would be fantastic!

I keep the nicest and rarest stuff for myself though...Including the EET note. 

Question for the crowd:  Is it worth getting the EET note graded professionally?

Dean

Jan 13th finds...Light on the paper money, but heavy on the coins!

I got a call from my teller contact this afternoon and he said to come by and check out these "strange" coins someone had turned in.

It turned out to be a small group of nickel dollars and 50 cent pieces!  One of the nickel dollars is the 1974 double yoke variety!

The teller also saved 3 birds $50s and $18 worth of customer wrapped penny rolls for me too!

I guess I'll be doing some coin roll hunting during the lockdown.   

I started searching through the batch of pennies from yesterday's bank pick up and...

I think I found my second-ever 1985 pointed 5 penny!

Sorry about the poor picture...

Jan 14th finds:
Day one of the Province-wide lockdown in Ontario means that everyone is supposed to stay home unless they absolutely must travel for essential purposes only.

Well, one of my teller contacts called me today and said that she had some notes...I call picking up banknotes an essential activity!

Off I went to the bank, and this nice little cache of bills is waiting for me.  I took it all so as not to waste the teller's time and on closer inspection, what did I find?  Apart from a destroyed 1954 $1 note, there was ANOTHER EET Lawson-Bouey Good Over note in the pile!

This one has a tear in the top margin  , but the paper is in overall better condition than the first EET note I found earlier.

Lightning does strike twice!   

Together again!   

I had a whole pile of EF/AUs that I had to got rid of recently.  I only kept the four nicest ones which ended up grading 66 EPQ .  Made me think I should have kept more.

Were your $1000 notes 1954 or were they Birds series?

And yes, I think that a lot of notes get "cashed in" by people who are strapped for cash.  Many people are struggling to make ends meet during COVID and it is sad that they have chosen to liquidate their collections at face value rather than do some basic research on the internet or make a quick call to a paper money or coin dealer.

Another vector for note redemption is through estates.  It happens often, as you say, where a clueless family member takes grandpa's coin and paper money collection to the bank and cashes it in after he dies.

ANOTHER EET Lawson-Bouey Good Over note in the pile!

Absolutely nuts!  I would suggest getting them graded only if you were going to sell them.  Even then I don't know if it really matters.  Unless you send them to PMG and they grade them VF20!

Were your $1000 notes 1954 or were they Birds series?

The 1000s were all Law-Bo '54s that my jeweler had gotten paid with.  Thought about offering them but since Unc's barely sell above face value it didn't seem to be worth the trouble.  Also didn't want to deal with the logistics of accepting payments and such.

Absolutely nuts!

Well put! I was shocked to see you score another Lawson-Bouey EET good-over "Dean." Totally awesome (that's what I call "knocking it out of the park" for collector's luck).  I also concur with "Al-Bob" in keeping them raw unless you want to risk a BCS grading (but be prepared to have the wind knocked out of your sails!  ) & keep it inexpensive. IMO: if you want to resell those 2 notes its better to keep the buyer guessing at the grade than having either PMG or BCS pin it down for you/them.  TPG either one (or both) would only be advisable if you want to make a quick sale.


So, I won't lie, you kind of inspired me to give it ANOTHER shot today at my local branch & try your strategy to ask if they have any old banknotes. Now I gotta tell you that I was pretty skeptical & somewhat nervous b/c all I've ever got from this branch has been GRIEF over our hobby. In fact, I even had to write the manager a letter explaining the paper money hobby to him about 5 years ago just so I could order a brick of Fives (which of course was all ratty, awful Fives after asking for new currency).  In short, they have done a lot in order to deter me from getting banknotes (in quantity) from them.  But I hear you say, "well man, bank managers change since they pay them so poorly," and yes I thought I'd heck, why not give it another "kick at the can."

And, I actually got a friendly teller who told me that they had some old notes!  Eureka!  But then he told me that I wouldn't be interested in them b/c they were "old, disgusting and ratty." [Which was no surprise to me since that seems to be the only type of currency these folks at this branch tend to deal with]. 

So I pressed my luck & said "that's fine, let's see what you got." The nice man counted $54 in ones and twos & boy they were the worse, ugliest rags I ever did see. However, at least I can say I did it & guess what? I even managed to score a $2.00 Beattie-Coyne I/B  (but this note is probably Poor to "Good")   

 I even managed to score a $2.00 Beattie-Coyne I/B  (but this note is probably Poor to "Good")   

Hi WTTW,
I'm glad that I've ignited the spark for banknote hunting in at least one other collector on this forum.   

It's always a thrill to get anything from the bank at face value.

I struck out today; 3 different banks, not one note.  These were banks that I went in cold and just asked for old money; they were not my "regular" banks.

It may seem that I find stuff every day, but in fact there are LONG stretches of time when I find nothing at all.  There was a glut of finds because of the Jan 1st change in legal tender status and now things seem to be cooling down to the occasional find of one or two notes.

The important thing is to keep going to the banks that you have had success in finding old money and coins because the tellers will get to know you as the "collector".  Don't let them forget your face!

Best of luck in the hunt,

Dean

It may seem that I find stuff every day, but in fact there are LONG stretches of time when I find nothing at all.  There was a glut of finds because of the Jan 1st change in legal tender status and now things seem to be cooling down to the occasional find of one or two notes.

The important thing is to keep going to the banks that you have had success in finding old money and coins because the tellers will get to know you as the "collector".  Don't let them forget your face!

I used to "recycle banknotes" by withdrawing large amounts & changing them down to smaller denominations.  They used to know my face well but nobody works at these branches for very long so many new faces.  I just slowly pulled back in 2019 and then rarely went in the past year (due to Covid).  I really didn't care what they had (nor what shape it was). It was actually more important for me to just see that they honour my request (& let me buy their old currency) than anything else. I know it takes several trips to score anything significant (from those $ recycle days) so I may try my luck again in the next couple weeks.  Now I have to make a trip to a different bank branch to deposit those disgusting ratty old $1 & $2 (except perhaps that beat-up DF $2)