Barely Legal Tender.

I found a badly damaged mashed up penny. This penny was scraped up and mangled. Partially folded in half. Much of the copper had been sheared off so the nickle core was visible. Of course I picked it up. 

Had I picked up a piece of garbage or money? Clearly it was a standard penny at one time. I heard that if you have 51% of a damaged bill it is still considered valid currency. 

A business can refuse to take any form of payment but banks can exchange damaged bills for regular bills. They send them to the federal reserve to be taken out of circulation. My theory was this would also apply to damaged coins.   

My plan was to take this damaged penny to my Credit Union and see if they would exchange it for an undamaged penny. If they wouldn't do that then maybe they would deposit 1 cent into my checking account. 

I went to my Credit Union with a check to deposit for a trivia show. Then they would know I was a member which might increase my odds of success. 

I presented my check to the teller along with my ID and debit card. The check was deposited without any complications. Then the clerk looked my in the eye and asked if I had anything else I needed to take care of. I made my move. 

Yes, there is one more thing. I found this penny on the ground. I set the penny on the window so the clerk could inspect it. I would like to exchange this damaged penny for a new penny or possibly deposit it into my account. She blushed with embarrassment. "I'm sorry sir. We cannot accept any currency that won't go through the coin sorting machine" the clerk said worthlessly.

Then I asked if there was anywhere else in town that would accept the coin or exchange it? She did not know. Then she asked me if there had anything else I needed taken care of. This was a very polite way of telling me to stop wasting her time. If only she knew wasting time was my profession.

On the way out I saw they were having a members appreciation day. They put out a table of cookies, pastries and small sodas. I may not have been able to solve my coin conundrum but I did pick up two chocolate chip cookies and a tiny sprite, for free.

I thought maybe the Credit Union wouldn't take it because they were a smaller bank. It's possible that Chase Bank would take it. As a bigger bank, they have more resources. 

Things didn't look good at Chase either. There was a big sign right by the teller talking about the national coin shortage and how it could effect coin transactions. 

The teller basically told me the same thing as my credit union. We cannot accept mutilated or damaged coins. I have no idea where you should take it. Is there anything else I can help you with? Maybe finding your way back to the parking lot?

I laughed, The teller laughed, my girlfriend laughed and said I told you so. Even thought I wasn't able to resolve my coin concern I didn't walk away empty handed. I picked up some free trivia pens from my new unofficial sponsor, Chase Bank. 

After being rejected by both my Credit Union and Chase I decided to see what google had to say about who might be able to help. Apparently if you have damaged bills that the bank will not accept, you can send them into to the US Bureau of engraving and printing. If you have damaged coins, you can send them to the US mint for evaluation and replacement. 

This is a free service provided by the government. Unfortunately they do not pay for shipping. So I, the tax payer, would have to fork out the money for postage and an envelope. Then there is a chance they will decide the coin is not worth anything and they won't send back a new penny or it's equivalent melt down value. It also seems that people don't send single coins unless they are collectors items filled with valuable metal.

There is an application process. The US Mint has the right to refuse any returns for any reason. There is a section on bent coins that states it will accept bent coins if the denomination can be determined from the coin. I think mine meets that requirement. They also said that due to the large volume of submissions there could be considerable wait times.

It would be great to know if I was wasting everyone's time or just my own before I sent out my coin. Luckily, the US mint provided an email address: MutilatedCoin@usmint.treas.gov. 

I sent them an email describing the coin and also the picture above entitled bent penny. 

I figured it would take a few business days before the Mint could return my request. Unfortunately during this time I thought it would be funny to make an Instagram reel of me putting the bent penny into a self checkout at the grocery store. I thought the machine would spit it back out but it never returned the coin. I continued filming for a couple of minutes but nothing happened. I considered asking the person running the machines to retrieve the bent coin but there was a chance I had broken the machine with my impulsiveness. I thought it was wiser to skedaddle.

In the end it might be a good thing to be rid of the bent penny. I would have continued to fool around with it until I had wasted a considerable amount of time. Hopefully the US mint isn't too disappointed that I will not be able to send in the damaged coin even if they do approve it for replacement.  

It's still unknown if the bent coin was worth anything. Next time I see one lying there in the road I'll attempt to resist the temptation to bend over and pull it into my life. There are so many other things I need to waste time on.