I’ve been interested in getting some Eisenhower dollar coins recently, and was wondering what the best way to get them is. I found out on the federal reserve website that they can be ordered by financial institutions in bags of $1000, and if I needed to do so, I’d order the whole bag to get my hands on some. I’ve read a lot of stories of people having difficulty getting banks to order them though, evidently because they aren’t on the online forms for ordering currency from the feds, and the calls need to be made directly and the Ikes asked for specifically, or something like that.
I bank through BoA and was wondering if there was anything I could say/do that would make it so they could order these coins for me. It seems that many tellers and even head tellers/supervisors are just unaware that they can still be ordered from the federal reserve, and that to do so requires some special ordering procedure. If BoA just says no, is there any other option for me besides Ebay and other websites that charge about $117 for $100 worth of the coins?
Any coin dealer can connect you with Ike dollars. Ebay sells them. They are not uncommon among collectors. Bags of 1000 would be a bit more difficult, I’d suggest asking your bank.
Thanks for the input. So it looks like if I want them I’m going to have to pay somewhat over face value. I see some on Ebay going for about 117 for 100, so I’ll probably go that route. I will double check with BoA though just to make sure.
And we got more if that isn’t enough. My lunch today was bought with circulated examples from the pail-o-crap kept for that purpose. We could supply some at face (plus S&H) but the local magicians usually keep our “spending stock” lower than you describe wanting.
I’d be surprised as well. I assumed the mint would only send banks money that is currently in production. Eisenhower dollars haven’t been produced since 1978.
The Fed (the Federal Reserve Bank), the Mint (which makes coins), and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (which makes paper money) are completely separate entities.
The Mint makes coins. When the banks get stuck with sacks of dollar coins, the Fed has to buy them back from the banks and then has to pay a fortune to store the unwanted coins in vaults somewhere. While I would be surprised if the Mint could supply any Eisenhower dollars, I would not be surprised to learn that the Fed has tons of them it is eager to get rid of.
Okay, but why assume there are bags of unwanted Eisenhower dollars sitting around in some government warehouse? As the OP noted, people are selling them privately for fifteen percent or more above their face value. The reasonable assumption would be that any government supply that was available at face value has long since been bought up by private dealers.
I went down to a local branch of BoA to pick up my half dollars I ordered (a box of $500). I printed out a bunch of research on Ikes and asked them if it was possible to special order them. They didn’t just flat out tell me no, but they weren’t sure, and said they’d look into it and call me back. According to many other people, their banks wouldn’t even entertain the idea at all, so I might get lucky and find a branch that is willing to do the leg work to get them.
After scouring other internet fora, it seems that Brinks, Loomis, Garda and other armored carrier services often do have bags of Ikes, and if they don’t, they can get them from the Fed in bags of $1000 or $2000, and they can be special ordered.
However, they do not show up on the regular printed/electronic forms for ordering coins. They have to be phoned in and specifically asked for by the financial institution. Evidently the feds really do have them, as there was some evidence in one post I found that Loomis had won a contract with the feds some time back to bag their coins or transfer them between branches or something, and one person posted a picture of Ikes they ordered in 2013 that came in a Loomis-brand bag, so it probably got ordered from the Feds that way.
Basically what I’ve found is that most banks do not order money directly from the Federal Reserve, because the Feds do not deliver, and most banks do not want to send their own armored cars to the local federal reserve branches (which might be some distance away). So they go through a company like Brinks, Garda, Loomis, or others who do order from the Feds and deliver to banks for a fee. There are a small number of people who have made friends with tellers, bank managers, etc, who were able to get Ikes ordered through their armored carriers, but they said it was difficult and many got rejected a few times until they found out that there was a special ordering procedure.
Anyway, I’ll get back to you all when I hear from my bank.
How many are we talking about here?
I have two I could put in the mail. I probably have more, but finding them will take some time. I work as a cashier, and I tend to buy them out of my drawer after a day or two because I think they are neat.
But they are also heavy and impractical, so I take them out of my pockets, and they aren’t particularly valuable, so I don’t pay a lot of attention to where I put them.
Probably a better idea: tell several businesses you frequent that you want them.
I work in a convenience store, and we have a couple of customers who want dollar coins, or half dollars, and stop in every few days to buy what we have (up to about $20 at a time).
Ikes, like bicentennial quarters, are “special”, but not particularly valuable. While you have to be seriously into nicotine withdrawl to be willing to spend a silver dollar for face value (when it is worth more than ten times that), folks who are out of smokes and straining 'till payday will spend coins that are just “special”, so (in my experience) a busy store that sells cheap cigarettes probably sees a couple a month. And they just sit in the cash drawer hoping somebody wants them.
Stop into a bank that deals with a lot of retail stores, tell them you are looking for Eisenhower dollars, and leave them your phone number in case any come in. Stop back every week.
But if you just want a couple, face value plus postage and I’ll send some to you.
Thank you for the very kind offer and the great advice. If my BoA branch can’t order them for me from their money courier, that’s exactly the route I’ll go! I’ll leave my name and number with various businesses and local bank branches and ask them to give me a call anytime they get some in.
I’ll hold off for a while on taking you up on your offer to send me what you have, but maybe I’ll PM you if I have a real hard time getting some. Thanks again!
This is fantastic and slightly hard to believe–that the Fed would still have (presumably) fairly silver-heavy dollar bags thirty-some years on. Where was it that you read all this?
There were Eisenhower silver dollars but they were just issued as collectibles. The Eisenhower dollars that were put into circulation were made out of copper and nickel.
That’s not true. They were 90% silver, then 40% silver for a while–I think it was until '64 and '70, then after that there wasn’t any more silver in them.
The first Eisenhower dollars were minted in 1971. It was the Kennedy half dollars that were 90% silver the first year and 40% for a few years after that.
The collectible Eisenhower dollars were 40% silver (and 60% copper). But they weren’t put into circulation by the government. Obviously somebody could buy a silver dollar and put it into circulation but that’s pretty unlikely.
Yeah, I won’t be sifting the ikes for silver if I can get a bunch, i really just want to leave them as special tips and such. Some people on the coin collecting forums I found that did get the bags did find some old real silver dollars mixed in though!
