Stingl: Need a bank to count your coins? Good luck finding one

Looks like my piggy bank and I are on our own now.

Actually, it's more of a box with a slot on top and a door on the bottom. My daughter made it for me in shop class years ago.

When it filled with coins from my pockets, about once a year, I'd pour out the quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies into a doubled grocery bag and drive to my bank, BMO Harris, where a teller would fire up the coin counter-sorter machine.

The coins clinked noisily through the mechanism, and in less than a minute we had a total, usually something like $116.71 plus a wayward drink token or centavo that was kicked out. There was no fee for the service.

With the box nearly full now, I better head over to a BMO branch by July 31 because that's when they're jettisoning the counters and getting out of the coin tallying business.

I'd say it's the end of an era, but I don't think you can really classify coin counting as an era. It's more a sign of these times when most of us interact far less with paper money and coins than we used to. Even the smallest transactions often go on plastic now or some other digital pay option.

Fellow writer Helen Pauly spotted the announced change on a sign at a BMO Harris drive-up window.

"Think of all the fun kids used to have saving coins in a jar (I still do) and taking them to the coin counter at the bank. Another banking institution (like getting a toaster for opening an account) that's gone the way of the buggy whip," she said in an email.

I think buggy whips and buggies disappeared together, so that wasn't  a huge hardship. But we still have coins to count, just not as many.

You can find self-serve Coinstar kiosks at 105 locations in metro Milwaukee, including Walmarts, grocery stores and pharmacies. But they take a standard cut of 11.9% to count your coins, unless you take the proceeds as a gift card for Amazon, Starbucks, iTunes and such.

BMO Harris spokesman Patrick O'Herlihy said in a prepared statement that the decision was based on a strategic review of coin counting and on industry trends driven by customer usage.

"We will still be offering our customers the option to purchase rolled coin, and we will still be accepting bulk and rolled coin for deposit and/or exchange," the statement said. Plus, they will provide the rolls.

The change will take place at all of the approximately 600 BMO branches in the United States. O'Herlihy wasn't sure what will become of that many coin counter machines.

A bit of local history: A Wisconsin company founded in 1889, Brandt Manufacturing of Watertown, was an early producer of coin-counting, sorting and dispensing machines.

Another bank with a large Milwaukee area presence, Chase, eliminated coin counting a couple years ago. Spokeswoman Christine Holevas said at the time that counting coins slowed service to their customers, which you know to be true if you ever got in line behind someone with buckets of change.

U.S. Bank retains coin counters at locations in Milwaukee where they see a need.

"Although we don't have the machines in every branch, we know it's a service customers appreciate," said U.S. Bank spokeswoman Heather Draper. "We've seen a few piggy banks turned into savings accounts, and if we can get kids to save money at an early age, we think that's a good thing."

After watching some of the big banks pull back the service, Town Bank now mentions coin counting in its advertising. 

"As a community bank, we use that as a selling point," said Jay Mack, president and CEO of Town Bank, which has 20 branches in Wisconsin with more planned. "It seems to be something that has attracted some people to our bank who are looking for that type of service, that old fashioned banking."

Securant Bank has coin counters at three of its four Milwaukee area branches. You'll notice that people in banking refer to coins as coin: "There isn't as great a demand for counting coin nowadays, but I think it's a service of a community bank," said president and CEO David Davis.

Yes, change happens. Now I just need someone to count it.

Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl