I was curious to the ones who coin rolled hunted many years ago for silver how were the results for you? Obviously these days it is tough finding volume, but it must have been nice before people really started realizing the value of a silver coin.
In the late 70's I didn't do it much but used to get buffs, wheats, and war nickels in change fairly often. The only reall roll hunting I ever did was buy bags of halves in the early 90's. To be fair silver was about $4, but I would find 64 kennedies often, (every bag had 8-10 at least), franklins were not very scarce, (maybe average 4-5 a bag, some would have 10, others none), and occasionally a WL half. 40% halves were downright common, sometimes I kept them sometimes I didn't. Please remember I believe a coin shop would only pay you like $.55 for them at the time, (if anything), so they weren't a very valuable coin. That is my only experience.
That wouldn't be any fun though, you'd buy a box and be out of the money for 50+ years, and you wouldn't be searching for anything, lol. Not to mention there have been better investments that you would have been able to make instead.
i use to work at a bank 6 years ago. i would have customers bring in rolls of silver coinage by the bucket full. this was even before i started collecting coins. once i did i found rolls and rolls of stuff. i think the best roll i got was of 1964 P quarters all BU. i think i still actually have a few of them left
Well, I suppose that the further back in time you go, the more often you'd find older issues. Like, nowadays it's kind of a big deal to find a WL half or a V nickel, but 50 years ago, you'd see those a lot more often. Back then, you'd probably find IHCs every once and a while, along with Barber coinage, or even seated Liberties! Just think about that... Wouldn't that be a dream come true? :jumping-jack:
I remember spending my fathers franky halves in 1986 at the swimming pool buying beef jerky and fun dip
IHC's had largely dropped out of circulation by the 1930s - my grandmother had recalled only rarely seeing them. Sometime when she was 9-10 she did get a FE cent that was dated 1858, she remembered it because of the eagle. But she spent it on penny candy...
They must of got hoarded. From 1909 to 1930, wheat's have only been around 21 years. You would think IHC's would of lasted until the 50s. I often find cents as far back as the early 60s, and that is 48 years ago.
I think you will find the key is identification when it comes to how fast things get hoarded. Change an obverse or reverse and they start to get joarded but gradually. Change both and its much quicker. Change metals or sizevand its very quick. If they had switched to an all zinc penny in 82 and not copper coated it i doubt you could find copper cents in circulation today. If they switch the 5 cent piece to an aluminum coin i am betting all current nickels would be out of circulation in less than a decade.
Come on, I cant be the only one.....In '65 my dad was stationed at Whiteman AFB, Mo. I was 8,the oldest of 5. Abought each month, the family would take a trip to Kansas City, where he'd go into some bank, coming out with a canvas bag. We,d then go to some coin shop where my dad would treat my brother & I to $1 "grab bags". I vividly remember receiving 5-6 Mercs, a handful of teen Lincolns or a silver Crown from someplace we never heard of. Mom & dad would fight all the way home. We had a corner of the basement with Govt. issue steel desks devoted to "date piles". There was no such thing as silver searching. Simply amass as many different dates & MMs. My 1st 16d came this way. Actually, what impressed me more than 10, 25, or (very rarely) 50c, were the bags of shiny new '65 cents. I remember we scanned each one (not with a scanner, what's that?) for the elusive "double-dot", an extra dot to the right top of the Memorial. They were at a premium at the time, I dont know if they're a listed variety/error now. I think it was short-lived. With about a dozen of them, mom got new pots &pans, an exercise macine & a TV for their bdrm. We kids got school clothes. Mom lightened up, briefly. I still have many of the canvas bags, as everything had to be re-rolled then. They werte weighed when returned. I remember the big deal when silver was selling 3X face. Dad did live long enough to see the '80s, but my mom was very sick & the "I told you so" was never uttered.
I didn't start collecting until 2010, but this thread has some cool stories the O.P. might like: http://www.cointalk.com/t197669/
IHC's were pretty popular out west. I have a small coin purse that was my great great grandfather's. He died in 1919 and the coin purse was saved by the family. There is one 1918-S in there, but the rest of the cents are IHCs and the nickels are all Liberties, the dimes curiously are all SL and the earliest date is 1843 and the most recent something like 1877. Sometime I will take it out of the bank and photograph the coin purse and the contents. It is a neat example of what was circulating ca. 1919.
I remember the double dot. It was popular and used to fill the 1965 D slots in the albums, remember they were printed before the mint decided to omit the MM. I actually found one, at the time. No value at all today. It isn't even listed today
I've been coin roll hunting since 1957. Never before have there been easier pickings of numismatically great coins than there are today. These scarce and rare coins are out there because people aren't looking for scarce coins but for silver and obsolete type. In 1957 all the coins were heavily picked over but they were only picked over for scarce dates and obsolete type. There were millions of coin collectors so even pretty common coins like a '24-D lincoln rarely appeared in circulation and when it did it was a cast-off; a cull. All the fractional coins were silver of course. By 1965 it was all garbage in circulation. Buffalos were dateless and silver was picked clean of anything even remotely interesting. If someone claims to have gotten a rare date they are lying or caught a coin that accidently got back into circulation. Every sinmgle coin had been checked by a collector hundreds of times. Silver started flowing out of circulation for real in 1968 when the price got over face value. By mid-'69 the government quit pulling it out because there wasn't enough left to bother. Clad coins were often brand new coins being released back to 1965. By 1971 the silver was gone completely. One could get out of an old piggy bank but it disappeared immediately. Silver still worked in vending machines so one could circulate only in theory. The incidence of silver hit its lowest poiint in '74 and held steady for decades. About 1 quarter in 6000 was silver if you could acquire a random sample but some coins were still being sorted for silver so you might never see one. In 2008 when the depression hit silver started showing up again. This is the result of foreclosures and the like. Right now lots of silver is still going into circulation but it still isn't circulating and will not work in most vending machines. It can't even circulate in theory. If you want good coins in circulation you have to go back to 1939 during the previous depression. Personally I'd rather look through the coins today since there are scarcer and more interesting coins even if the '39 coins were very valuable by today's standards.
