Finding $500 or $1000 bills in circulation (local banks)
Africa2017
Posts: 19 ✭
About 15 years ago, I picked up 2 $1000 bills and 1 $500 bill at my local Wells Fargo branch. The branch manager was going to turn them in but I convinced the assistant manger to let me buy them instead. They weren't in great shape as they had small staple holes but for face value, I can't complain.
Anyone else have similar stories from the past as I'm sure it is impossible to find them nowadays. Thanks.
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Nope, I've never been fortunate enough to ever had a deal like that !!!
I've picked up a few $500s like that over the years (never a $1000). Of course, I've alerted all of the bank managers (and their tellers) in my area to watch out for them and, if any are turned in, to contact me and, based upon condition, I would pay a premium for them. So, every once in a while, I get a phone call to stop by the bank(s). The last $500 I was able to buy was about a year ago.
Member ANA, SPMC, SCNA, FUN, CONECA
Old $100’s, yes but no luck on anything higher.
Wow, that's amazing that you could possibly find one of those at a bank.
nope, i never had the luck of getting any one of them
I remember a guy paying me with a $1000 bill for a purchase of a rare National Bank Note.
I worked at a credit union back in 1996 and someone brought in a $500 note to deposit. At the end of the day I told my boss it was coming home with me! I only had to make an equal withdrawal for $500 ...that was a great deal!
I worked for a Wells Fargo branch while in college in southern California in the late 80s. When I started there, there was an avg. circulated $500 bill in the vault that I was able to purchase for face value. The vault also had a few dozen bags of Ikes... I used to withdraw a few hundred of them on some weekends, play poker with friends using them and some Kennedy halves as chips, then redeposit them on Monday. Wish I'd thought to look through them more carefully.
I just missed one once. I had gone with my wife shopping in Fillmore St. in San Francisco. We were in there when a clerk came back with handful of bills. A tourist from Japan had made a purchase and had $1000 bill so the manager of the store sent the counter person across the street to a Wells Fargo branch to change it. I went to the bank to see if they would sell it to me and the gave me a line of bs that it was illegal for citizens to have large denom bills.
In the past decade I have gotten three $1000 and two $500 from banks. One of the $1K notes is a Series 1934 from the Cleveland OH.
Apparently an elderly bank customer had passed away so a couple of bank representatives went to her place to do an inventory and came across the bills. An outside estate appraiser said they weren't worth paying him to appraise it and that they should just take them to the local branch and deposit them so that's how I happened upon it. Just lucky timing.
I'm reminded of a story I heard from a coin dealer. He got a call from a woman who had discovered six $500 bills in her deceased husband's safe deposit box. Was he interested? Absolutely! And he rushed down to meet her at the bank. When he got there she was pleased to inform him that "we know they're all real!" The bank manager had marked each one with an anti-counterfeiting pen.