It's true that you would not HAVE to provide a notice of the hold you placed. However, both for the sake of consistency and for customer relations, I believe a hold notice is appropriate.
The length of your hold should not be an issue under Regulation CC. I am not aware of any state rule that would address your question.
A comment: Obviously someone in your bank felt there might be a problem with these savings bonds, although the only description you gave is that they were "stale dated" and that there were a lot of them ($48,000). Did you consider at the time the alternative of forwarding the bonds directly to the Fed for payment and crediting your customer's account only once you had received good funds?
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John S. Burnett
BankersOnline.com
Fighting for Compliance since 1976
Bankers' Threads User #8