Thread: Is there any Silver REALLY out there?

I'm new to coin roll hunting. I've been collecting coins for about 3 years, but have just started coin roll hunting. Myself and a friend have been buying rolls of quarters and dimes from local banks in hopes of finding silver. I have spent $380 in the last 3 days from 3 different local banks. I haven't specifically asked for CWR's but i guess the tellers know what I'm doing and have given me rolls with hand folded ends, not BWR's. My question is: is there just a very small amount of silver coins in still in circulation and I haven't looked through enough rolls or am I persuing a futile effort?

No, it is not a futile effort by far. Two weeks ago I found 21 silver dimes within a few days of each other. Eleven of those silver dimes were in the same roll. Last week I bought $450 in CWR dimes and didn't find a thing. When it is your turn to hit, you will hit. Silver coins that are "still in circulation" from when they were released contemporarily are by and far in very small amounts. I think what the bulk of what we find when we find a silver coin in circulation is a coin that was relatively recently released by someone who doesn't know what they have or just doesn't care.

It varies based on so many factors: Location, bank, which tellers are on duty, time of day, phases of the moon, the price of hard red winter wheat, who's running in the 4 o'clock race at the Aqueduct, etc. etc.

That said, $380 in dimes and quarters is not nearly enough to find your average. I'd expect to find about 1.3 silver Roosies in $380 of dimes alone. I'd expect to find about 0.1 to 0.3 silver quarters per $380 in quarters alone (and that's just guess work; I've only found silver Q's from trays). Take a look through the results thread to get an idea of what's a normal yield.

I search mostly dimes and have found 1.3 silver dimes per box ($250) on average through 2012 searching a total of $38,032.50.

Depends how desperate you are. Most people are averaging close to 1 silver dime per $250 box. I would call that next-to-futile unless your banking set-up allows you to handle massive amounts of coins. Here I can do 2.5 boxes a week without causing trouble at my banks. To me that's basically futile, but I do it because I never know what I will find.

I was hooked after looking through the first $60 in CWR dimes I found 5 silver. I am not as lucky with the boxes. I'll find one per box on a good week.

The half dollars have been just as hard to score silver on as the dimes for me anyway. Luckily I am also looking for coins to fill my albums so that keeps me going.

Yup. Not a lot of 90% halves, but I have scrounged out 40 40% halves in the past couple of weeks.

Thanks for the responses. I think I've been inspired to continue the hunt. As long as there are some gems out there then I'll continue to search for them.

There will be times when you find nothing. Actually you can go through periods of few finds punctuated by moments of sheer excitement and amazement.

I have looked so far this year 16000.00 in quarters and have found one 1983 proof and 2 silvers both in the 60's. That doesnt account for the 2 full rolls of silver quarters and 2 rolls of mercury dimes I got one day with a 32 d and 32 s quarters and 1921 d merc. So yes they are out there but quarters are difficult. Scottishmoney is right tho because they are scarce when you find one its pure joy. Happy HUNTING. Keep going

Originally Posted by clorox

It varies based on so many factors: Location, bank, which tellers are on duty, time of day, phases of the moon, the price of hard red winter wheat, who's running in the 4 o'clock race at the Aqueduct, etc. etc.

I've found I have best success when TAM-105 sells for $5-5.5/bu.

When I first started I stuck with pennies and nickels, looking for wheats and war nicks and so on, because I doubted so much that silver would be out there. It is very rare but honestly if you just keep going through boxes eventually you will find one. With silver, one silver coin per box is good, more than one is awesome, and three or more is practically a miracle. I don't do half dollars as much because I am not so crazy about 40%ers, but there are a lot of those, maybe more than there are silver dimes. But I've gotten my best results with nickels, even found a V nickel once, and about 20 common buffs, not including dateless. So if you really want to find stuff with great frequency, nickels are the way to go. But if you want 90% silver, then go with dimes.

This may be a dumb question but do the 40% halves have any melt value or is the silver more of a plating?

Originally Posted by COINnoisseur

This may be a dumb question but do the 40% halves have any melt value or is the silver more of a plating?

That's not a bad question at all. They are clad, not plated, and contain a good bit of silver.

You can find the most up to date melt values of silver and base metal US coins here:
www.coinflation.com

Originally Posted by A.J.

That's not a bad question at all. They are clad, not plated, and contain a good bit of silver.

You can find the most up to date melt values of silver and base metal US coins here:
www.coinflation.com

Thanks for the info, I've been trying to figure that one out for awhile but could never get a clear answer from books,they all just said 40% clad and i wasn't sure if clad was another term for plating. I was turned on to coinflation.com by another member of the forum, it is very helpful and useful site, easy to use and navagate also.