Sorry; yes, I do mean people emptying out their piggy banks. Ten years ago I hardly ever saw bicentennial quarters and wheat pennies around; it is as though we’ve stepped back in time to 1980. I’ve also gotten a few silver dimes; that takes me back to 1978!
One day about four years ago I was finishing breakfast at the greasy spoon about a mile away, when I needed to get change for a dollar (so I could finish out my tip). The waitress on the register gave me my change, and I looked down and saw a double flash of white in my change -- she'd given me two silver quarters! I went back to the register and checked, and her drawer was alive with silver quarters -- someone had taken a roll of them to the bank without opening them (a thief? busybody wife? kids?) and cashed them for $10/roll. I got more of them from the cashier, who was in her late 20's and from Mexico to boot, and had no idea what she was looking at in that drawer. I went back to the counter, said look at this to the guy next to me, and dropped a couple of them on the counter. Instantly, the older black guy next to him jerked his head around when he heard the coins hit the counter -- even after 45 years, he knew what the sound of real money hitting the bar sounded like, and snapped to instantly. I went back and got more change, and then I told the girls what they had. I must have got about $1.50-2.00 in silver quarters out of that drawer. Looked over a second later and two of the waitresses were pawing through the cash drawer, getting them out. The black guy went over and made change, too, and got a couple.