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Funny Stories Involving the TSA and Coins

airplanenutairplanenut Posts: 22,420 ✭✭✭✭✭

I posted a coin earlier today and was reminded of an enjoyable story involving it and the TSA, and then another story popped in mind. So, if you have any good stories of coin interactions with the TSA, let's hear 'em.

My first story was at Newark when I was on my way to the Summer Seminar. I didn't have much on me and there was plenty of space, so I didn't need a private screening. The screener was very discrete, picking up a few slabs part way out of my one slab box. After he closed the box, he dramatically looked both ways, then turned to me and went, "you got any CC dollars?"


Second story. I was flying out of Sarasota, where it was packed, and I opted for a private screening. I was carrying inventory for a dealer going to a major show (including a bag of at least 100 modern commems in capsules), and the guy at the x-ray machine comes to me and says, "yeah, so there's this... giant mass we can't see around... and we're going to have to search your bag." No problem. I get two TSA agents and a private room. One is watching, and one is doing the searching and SUPER interested (I later found out that among the various dealers in the area and NGC, he is/was well known for being interested in coins). He's asking about about everything to the point where the other guy had to go, "dude, there's nothing he can't have and he has a flight to catch... let him go." Anyway, to the aforementioned coin. He pulled out these two, which were one after the other in a box:


He exclaimed, "Wow! Do you think they were in the same mint bag?"

And I just replied, "they're different years..."

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Comments

  • Jzyskowski1Jzyskowski1 Posts: 6,650 ✭✭✭✭✭

    🤓👍🏼

    🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶

  • amwldcoinamwldcoin Posts: 11,269 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 13, 2021 5:29AM

    I'll post the opposite and the last time I flew with coins.

    I was going to a show with a good friend that had what ever the top tier flying miles status was. We had been through the private room search and went to board. Because of his status we were the 2nd and 3rd person to board the plane. Yep a dumb ass pulls me to the side and said you have been randomly selected to be searched. I explained to him to no avail that we had a private screening and I was carrying valuables. Didn't do any good. That asshole searched my bags in front of everyone boarding the plane.

  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I used to fly a lot - for business mostly. I often had coins that I was going to show someone at my destination, or coins I had purchased during my trip. Other than often having a special search, due to the 'mass of metal', I encountered no difficulties. I used to throw change into my carryon during trips, and the coins would accumulate over several trips. One TSA agent asked me to please remember to take them out before traveling again, because they have to personally check the container since the x-ray cannot see through/past the mass of coins. Cheers, RickO

  • SeattleSlammerSeattleSlammer Posts: 10,069 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I’ve been through screening several times with a full PCGS Box of 20 in my carryon .... not once has it ever been flagged or caused a search.

  • airplanenutairplanenut Posts: 22,420 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @SeattleSlammer said:
    I’ve been through screening several times with a full PCGS Box of 20 in my carryon .... not once has it ever been flagged or caused a search.

    I often had a box or two with me going home for weekends in college. I’d say I got stopped more often than not, though usually it was a cursory glance to make sure those small little dots on the X-ray weren’t a bazooka.

    JK Coin Photography - eBay Consignments | High Quality Photos | LOW Prices | 20% of Consignment Proceeds Go to Pancreatic Cancer Research
  • oih82w8oih82w8 Posts: 12,624 ✭✭✭✭✭

    My Bachelor and Master degrees are in Aeronautics, and the TSA is common joke in class for "Taking Stuff Away" and "Touching Sensitive Areas". No coin loss stories on my part.

    oih82w8 = Oh I Hate To Wait _defectus patientia_aka...Dr. Defecto - Curator of RMO's

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  • jessewvujessewvu Posts: 5,065 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Not coin related but I was going OCONUS for work and had a jam packed carry on. I was TSA pre-check but got the random selection for swab and search... As the TSA agent was opening the bag, I said "careful, it might explode" at which point he stood up straight and gave me a stink eye. I quickly clarified my statement that it was full and not packed with explosives which he also didn't seem to like me saying. He wasn't a nice person.

  • StellaStella Posts: 720 ✭✭✭✭✭

    This happened to a dealer friend rather than to me personally.

    He was flying back from a show with a large silver bar. The TSA screeners made him put it on the security belt twice and kept asking him to "open it up and show us what is in there." He explained that it was a solid silver bar, not a case of some kind, and that there was no way to open it. They inspected it a couple more times and then eventually let him through security with his hefty bullion cargo.

    When he got to the gate, they pulled him aside for a second search. Once again, they asked him to "open it up." After explaining again, the agents eventually realized that this really was a solid piece of silver and that you would have to drill into it to see inside! At that point, they let him carry on with his day...

    Coin collector since childhood and New York Numismatist at Heritage Auctions.
  • BryceMBryceM Posts: 11,864 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I've been through the Long Beach and Vegas airports a few times with no problems. They must see the stuff often enough to know what it is. In Salt Lake City I've had the "show-and-tell" in the private room experience a couple of times. One agent was genuinely interested, I had plenty of time, and we spent about 15 minutes talking coins. He was too terrified to actually touch the slabs though, even when I offered.

    The only funny thing is the time I could overhear two guys at the monitor trying to figure out what they were looking at. They came up with some pretty interesting ideas.

  • kruegerkrueger Posts: 905 ✭✭✭✭

    My TSA agent pulled me aside had me open my PCGS box and pull out a few coins then he wanted me to open the slabs!!!
    I said they were sonically sealed because etc etc. said I was going to the national coin convention ANA.and that satisfied him. Whew!!

  • airplanenutairplanenut Posts: 22,420 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @jessewvu said:
    Not coin related but I was going OCONUS for work and had a jam packed carry on. I was TSA pre-check but got the random selection for swab and search... As the TSA agent was opening the bag, I said "careful, it might explode" at which point he stood up straight and gave me a stink eye. I quickly clarified my statement that it was full and not packed with explosives which he also didn't seem to like me saying. He wasn't a nice person.

    One summer break from college I got maybe an hour or two of sleep after packing up my room before I had to get up to go to the airport. My bag got stopped and the TSA guy asked a very delirious me if there was anything he could hurt himself on when he searched my bag.

    “Not that I know of”
    “That’s the wrong answer. Try again”
    “No”
    “Very good”

    And he carried on with his search. I answered that I couldn’t imagine anything in the bag could hurt him. He heard someone else got into the bag unbeknownst to me. But he was cool about it.

    JK Coin Photography - eBay Consignments | High Quality Photos | LOW Prices | 20% of Consignment Proceeds Go to Pancreatic Cancer Research
  • FishproFishpro Posts: 389 ✭✭✭

    When I fly I’m always searched, always! I had six boxes of slabs with me, about 125 coins or so, they looked at each one!

  • amwldcoinamwldcoin Posts: 11,269 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I just remembered a funny one!

    This was at the local airport in Moscow, Russia. It was the beginning of summer and was going to spend a month at the Dacha in Siberia. I'm in the waiting area after checking my bag and all the sudden there is a commotion and one of the security guards heads towards me. I sure am glad I had an interpreter with me. They take me over to the x-ray machine with everyone keeping there distance from my bag. Then the lady running the x-ray machine points to an image of my bag rambling on at 1000 words per minute. My interpreter told me they want to know what that is in your bag and for you to remove it so they could see it. What looked like a bomb to them was a 3 pack of mosquito repellant. In the end, I don't know who it scared more, me or them!

  • yspsalesyspsales Posts: 2,526 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Crypto said:
    I will add another gem from my wife's luck:

    My wife is a pretty conservative and way too much school judge type but once she went down to a bachelorette party down in Miami Beach with her Law School friends. They had a house with a pool where a male blow up doll hung out the entire time (affectionately called Tom Selleck due to a mustache). Once again my wife tired to bring Tom home in her carry on where she was flagged by the Xray but not for a private screening. A rather large and aggressive old lady TSA agent proceed to go through her bag and pull tom out in the middle of security making quite the scene while informing my wife that the sand in his feet (to help him stand) had gotten saturated and now classified as a liquid that exceeded the ounce limit and she would have to mail Tom home. Mind you this is while about a Dozen mostly still drunk ladies were dying laughing and filming the encounter. They still make Jokes of Tom stranded down in Florida waiting to come home a decade later. It wasn't even hers, she just offered to carry as she had room. Nice to a fault.

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  • SaorAlbaSaorAlba Posts: 7,593 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Travelling back and forth betwixt the USA and Ukraine a few years ago I usually changed planes in Amsterdam to catch my flight to Donets'k. One time I had some AGE in my carryon, and you guessed it it set off the metal detector. I told the agent that I would like a private screening and they refused. He then proceeded to rifle through the carryon and pulled an AGE out in the holder and held it up for everyone to see "Oh, interesting" My though was "EFF!" Handed the coin back to me, I tucked it back into the bag and slithered onto the plane.

    Tir nam beann, nan gleann, s'nan gaisgeach ~ Saorstat Albanaich a nis!
  • SilverProofQuarter1883SilverProofQuarter1883 Posts: 1,883 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Kinda about coins and TSA. A few years ago I when to visit my grandparents in Israel and I brought along some coins and old pocket watches to show my grandparents my collection. TSA thought it was a suspicious package and sucked me. When they saw my suspicions package was just an old watch they laughed.

  • tommy44tommy44 Posts: 2,320 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Not coin related but my wife's 90 year old aunt came to visit several years ago, pre TSA and when you could actually escort folks to the gate for their flight. Well she decided she wanted to bring a couple of cap guns home to her grand kids. Here she goes, with a bad hip, a limp and a cane and, you guessed it, the cap guns in her carry-on instead of her checked bag. You can imagine how much commotion that caused at the security check.

    it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide

  • DRUNNERDRUNNER Posts: 3,903 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just did a copy and paste of this to my Word Files . . . . .not going to type it again . . .

    Drunner

  • MrBearMrBear Posts: 379 ✭✭✭

    Not coin related, but 11 years ago, the first time I went to the Tucson Gem Show, I was amazed at how the TSA did NOT feel the need to search any of my carry-on luggage after it passed through the x-ray. Nothing dangerous, but I had all kinds of rocks and crystals, along with 2-3kg of iron meteorites and some big pieces of Spanish pyrite (which naturally forms in cubic shapes)

    Occasionally successful coin collector.

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