Eisenhower Dollar Rolls or Bags
erwindoc
Posts: 5,193 ✭✭✭✭✭
Anyone every find these or request them from banks? I know there are millions sitting in vaults somewhere. Been thinking about asking my local banks and CU to get me some.
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How do you know there are millions sitting somewhere in vaults?
i think there were thousands IN bags found that little procured in the past few years or so, no?
i've not found nor requested these or any bags. would be fun to do one day.
This is an interesting question.
I had assumed there were countless bags of these never even issued but there are a couple strong arguments against it. The mint and FED use FIFO accounting which mandates they rotate their stocks. If they followed this rule there should be no Ikes minted after 1974 in storage other than circulated coin.
Then there's the simple fact that the mint apparently resumed minting half dollars for circulation in '19 or '20 after a 20 year hiatus. If they could have drawn down their half dollar stocks then Ikes might have all been released many years ago.
Add in the facts that nobody seems to be able to pry a single piece out of the banks or FED and prices on Ikes are soaring and it has me seriously considering the possibility that WYSIWYG and none survive in storage. I did see a recent picture of bags in storage but there was no way to know when it was taken or the disposition of the coins.
I do wonder if there was a point where the Mint simply melted unused Ikes.
peacockcoins
I doubt it. Wouldn’t that be a waste of their seigniorage?
Yep. Probably right.
I can't imagine where all the unspent Ikes are now though.
peacockcoins
As far I know, a few years ago, the Fed finally removed Ikes from the order forms that banks used to order coin. I'm not sure if they actually had inventory before then that could be requested.
I don't, but if they weren't destroyed/melted, where are they?
They might have simply all been paid out.
This is a consumer society and the Ikes may have all been consumed. If so about 20% are overseas, 35% are in sock drawers, 40% have been destroyed or completely degraded, and far less than 5% are in new condition. Of those in new condition most are tarnished or MS-60 to MS-63.
I have a few.... but no bags of Ikes
While it is certainly possible there are some - somewhere- It would seem unlikely that the Mint would still be sitting on them. I would think lessons were learned from the Morgan situation years ago. JMO... Cheers, RickO
If you're going to the bank and asking for a bag of Eisenhower dollars, make sure that you specifically ask for the large ones from the seventies. If not, you'll come home with a bag of the 2015 gold colored Ike's.
Wisdom has been chasing you but, you've always been faster
A few months ago I tried to get or order some from my local banks and credit unions.
I asked them "what do you do with ones that come in from customers?"
They all said pretty much the same thing "We don't get them very often and when we do sometimes one of the employees or another customer wants to keep it, if no one wants them we send them in with all of our other change to be rolled."
The coin rolling facility (Brinks/Lumis) in your area is sure to have some.
The problem is getting them.
All the banks & CU's in my area said the same thing when I tried to order them.
"The order form we use doesn't have a box to check for Ike dollars it only has one box to check for dollars."
"If we check that box we get the small golden dollars."
"There is no way for us to order or specify Ike dollars."
I talked to several branch managers that know me well to see if they could call in an order.
A couple of them said "We are only allowed to order once a week through a secured order process, we would need to be able to order it with our order and anything being ordered must be on the form. It is against policy to place an order another way for something that is not on the form."
A couple of the managers made a call to the rolling facility they use. They were not able to talk to a live person.
It would seem this is done as a security measure, it prevents bank mangers or employees from ordering money any other way than through the normal system.
So the banks & CU's are out for getting rolls or bulk unless a customer happens to drop some off.
The next thing you think is, I should just call the rolling facility and pick some up there.
The problem with that is they do not sell to the public.
There is a very good chance that most rolling facilities have a bag or 2 of them.
They are unable to send them out to a bank because it is not on the order form.
They can't send them back to the government under the damaged coin program.
There is a good chance they would love to sell you every Ike dollar they have but there is no way to do it with rules/regs.
Good luck with your search.
I've tried asking them to order big dollars from the bank before but they all said that they are unable to order the big ones, small ones yes but not the big ones. The only ones I can get are the ones customers turn in. Got a bank bag of 400 a couple weeks ago that a customer turned in.
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Whoa. What. "40% have been destroyed". There were approximately 566 million clad Ikes minted (I am not including the S mints nor the proofs). 40% of that would be leaving 340 million Ike dollars having been destroyed. How? What?
peacockcoins
All of the condition rarities in the Peace dollar series came as a surprise to those few people collecting them back in the day. It was always just assumed there were millions more sitting in the vaults…… and that era is still within living memory of some collectors.
That said, if you need Ikes, it isn’t usually too hard to find bag quantities on eBay. They’ve usually been picked over, but you can get them.
There were approximately 566 million clad Ikes minted.
if only half of those still existed and half of those were bagged coins, that would be 141,500 bags of Ike Dollars. if only 10% of those were original bags that would be 14,150 bags of BU Ike Dollars. if only 1% of those were 1972-P's that would be 141 bags and a potential windfall of T.2 Ikes.
What is a bit comical is true MS67 clad Ikes are scarcer than Morgans and Peace dollars combined.
peacockcoins
Wasn't there a hoard of 20 or so bags, all new coins , found in a bank
in Montana or Idaho?
One of my customers likes em, he sells them at the flea market. I usually let him have what comes in from time to time in collections. I did get a call from a local bank that had gotten like 400 or so, I went and got them for him as I could care less.
however,
About a month ago, got a mint fresh roll of 1971-d , I went thru and pulled out the best 5 and sent them in to pcgs under modern tier just to see if I could get a 66. Ill let you know later when they grade em
You have to know somebody at the bank to get 'em. That's plain and simple how it works.
I had a bank getting me bags for about 6 months. Was nice while it lasted. That was 6 years ago.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
"40%" might be a little high but if these really are sitting in US and foreign sock drawers as I am speculating then the number probably isn't outrageous. There are millions of ways coins are lost through attrition or simple misadventure. In order for them to all have been distributed then they must be very widely distributed to the general (consuming) public. Any time a dollar is refused in commerce there's a fair chance the owner will simply dispose of it. People dispose of many things of value and an old Ike dollar in a sock drawer might have lost its owner and its sentimental value.
If the FED still has tens or hundreds of millions in storage then I'd revise my estimate of the number destroyed sharply lower but it has to be at least 25% just because of fires and floods, I know an individual who stored 100 nice gemmy examples and they all tarnished.
It's difficult to extrapolate the attrition on non-circulating Ikes from that on clad quarters but about 55% of 1965 quarters no longer exist. Many more quarters will be lost through misadventure but more Ikes will be lost through intention. Keep in mind there were three times as many 1965 quarters minted than all the Ike dollars. There have been 120 times as many clad quarters made as large clad dollars.
I have about 150 Ikes sitting around and I haven't looked at prices in a long time. I put 100+ of them in a clear casino chip holder and it actually looks pretty cool. Your comment that prices are soaring got me to look on eBay and 100 coin lots are considerably higher than the last time I looked. Maybe they are not wasting space in the closet like the wife told me
Another 20 years and I might double my money 
One of the more disheartening things I have ever seen was at an estate auction in a rural farm community one time when people were paying close to $8 for circulated Ikes when silver dollars were going for around $10-$12. When I tried to tell a few people that they were clad they looked at me like I was insane. It was one of the more bizarre auction experiences I have seen and I have been to a lot of rural auctions over the years. When people get caught up in the frenzy over a big shiny one dollar coin, there is no stopping them.
As for where all the Ikes have gone.....
I have a former co-worker whose family owned a bait shop for 3 generations. When her dad died she was cleaning out his basement and found a ton of Ikes they had received over the years from customers. He would pull them out of the drawer and put them in the basement. She showed them to me and I guess there were over $1,000 easy and she just kept them as a reminder of her mom and dad.
I had a student whose mom worked as a bank teller for 40+ years and he showed me a list of all the coins and currency she bought out of her drawer over the years. It included a huge number of Ike Dollars along with common silver and odd currency and coins.
I am guessing there are a lot of people hoarding Ike dollars because they are different and you don't see them in circulation any more.
While I wouldn't doubt people are hoarding them, they're not likely storing them in a good way either to maintain their condition.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
I was at one of these auctions in Ohio many years ago. There were a couple hundred mint sets including some '82 and '83 souvenir sets with a few nice gemmy coins. I stuck around to bid on them figuring I could pick them all up cheap but everything was going for double and triple bid price. I still figured I could outbid anybody on a few of the souvenir sets but much to my surprise they went for about 20X market value.
Dealers tell me this is where lots and lots of cheaper mint and proof sets are going; estate sales. They've been doing this for more than a decade and it's the biggest drawdown on mint sets other than wholesalers and jobbers. Apparently the general public just goes bonkers bidding on this stuff. Most people don't even seem to realize such a product exists so when they see them they assume they are rare. Many shops have just been kept cleaned out of this material where the buyers are active.
They are a loan to the government just like the State Quarters. I wonder what face value amount is greater, the Ike dollars squirreled away(if they were all distributed) or the state quarters. Of course Kennedy Halves are probably not too far behind. The where abouts of all those Ikes is a mystery.
I was at one of these auctions in Ohio many years ago.
when I worked at a Coin Shop in NEOhio we attended quite a few of the auctions similar to what you described, generally in south-south central Ohio. prices for Mint/Proof Sets were ridiculous, sometimes twice GreySheet bid. some of the auctioneers had a trick they used with the Mint Sets --- sell the "P" and "D" cello's individually!!
Yes, I've seen this as well at auctions and estate sales. It has long surprised me that the general public has any interest in or would even notice that a modern coin is in uncirculated condition. Even as early as the late '70's I'd have people notice once in a while when I tendered BU coins in a store. One guy followed me out of his store trying to get me to tell him where they came from!!
These coins have hardly been "pushed" by the numismatic marketplace. Usually no sets are in evidence in a store and if they are then none are displayed. The prices are still so low that dealers make no effort to move them. Many dealers are only interested in buying silver and gold and think of mint sets as a nuisance that people sometimes bring in which they have to buy or lose the deal.
It's such a strange situation that the mint produced so many sets for a market that never had any significant demand for any of the coins in them and then they traded for many many years at less than face value even when the coins in them eventually became worth far more than the sets. And all the while sets were being retailed in untraditional venues like Walmart, estate sales, and Bob Vila's website!! And now, suddenly, Ikes are in high demand from the general public and are desired in any condition except Beaten Up.
The auction I referred to was near Columbus in a farming community.
There is just a little more than one Ike for every American and a lot of the survivors are very unattractive. Wholesale on chBU Ikes is at $3.50 now, any date. Supply still exist in sets that are coming out of the woodwork because of higher prices but I doubt there are enough left to hold prices at this level.
Not sure they are a loan, it seems to me that clad and other circulating coins are directly created money with no offsetting borrowing by the government.
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