I've just finished my 7th box of halves and found not one silver. I have only found silver when customers brought in coin rolls randomly. I wonder if companies like such pay people to sit there and pick out silver or run coins through machines that pick silver? If so, I need a job.
I would imagine with silver at the price it is, they would! Also, I would not put it past tellers to pick through rolls and boxes. I know for a fact the tellers are starting to get more and more wiser. One teller at my local Wells Fargo had a silver quarter all set aside in her tray. I spotted it, asked for it, and got it...she was kinda mad. Also, a couple days ago I asked for halves and got 3 whole coins. Of those three the teller handing them over thumbed through all of them. Front and back. Trust. No. One.
I know the teller at one of the banks I go to well and she tells me that when she has time, she goes through the rolls that are brought in. But the boxes I order are sealed. But I think that the armored car companies do go through them....
I would think Brinks/Loomis would have mostly post-64 coins on the basis that most "silver" coins would be rejected by the counting machines.
the coin counting maching at my wells fargo rejects silver and canadian coins. who needs to sort? just bring them to the machine to do it for you! ha ha
Yes but in the 50's a silver coin would not have been too heavy. The problem began in 1965 with the clad coins. Most counters and detectors check coins for size and weight (Electronic signatures didn't become important until much later.). The weights of the clad coins was significantly different and if they set the weight discrimination wide enough to pass both it also passed a bunch of slugs. Vending machines had a real problem in the mid sixties. They could be set to accept silver or clad but not both. As clad came to dominate the setting were gradually all changed to accept clad. so now today the machines reject silver. And I seriously doubt that Loomis or Brinks pull silver. With the huge volume of coins they process each day they would not have the time to do it manually (How many hundred of boxes can you go through day in day out.) It would be possible to have machinery that could do it, but the percentage of silver in circulation is so small they probably wouldn't consider it to be worthwhile.
I read somewhere and I can't find the article but it said that Cash4Gold outlets are paying employees to roll search when hours are slow.
I went to a local bank about two months ago and asked for some dollar coins (I just get a kick out of spending those "golden" dollars.) Well, they said, yeah if you don't mind getting those huge Eisenhower ones. My standard response at this point is "Well, I guess they all spend the same." They had 10, and one was silver, so that was a nice stumble on my part. The melt on that coin alone is $14.88! http://www.shoeboxcoins.com/MeltValues.aspx I felt like I was robbing the place as I walked out of there . . . I guess the other 9 were worth about $1.50 each, at least. So I changed $10 of paper money (intrinsic value: 8 cents) into $28.38. I don't think that there is a coin minted that has any intrinsic value anymore. That isn't good for our hobby long-term, I don't think.
It's all a matter of timing... I walked into the bank, ask for halves (as always), got lucky (as someone had just brought in $45 worth). Bought 'em all... (4) '64's and (10) 40%. Luck and timing!
One might think that skunk boxes are common now, due to heavy crhing activity. When I started roll hunting back in early '08, my good scores were made thru handrolls. I have had one decent box in 3 years, and that one had 27 keepers (halves). The rest have been really poor, believe me.