back in the late 60's early 70's, my gradpal owned a sno cone route. he used to ride in a pickup truck selling snow cones around town. my mom and several of my uncles worked on this route. snowcones were 10 cents. i asked my mom what kinds of coins she got and i was suprised! she said she used to get indains and wheaties all the time. then she said she got v nickels, buffalo nickels, and i'm guessing lots of pre 1960 nickels. she said she used to get mercury dimes and silver roosevelts all the time. then she said she got silver washington quarters alot. then, she said she used to get franklins and walking liberty halves. now, here's the real shocker! she said she remebers even getting a morgan once! i couldn't belive what i heard. she said she rolled up all the coins and took them to the bank. this was in the early 70's! were they still common back in the 70's? she said if she would have know the value, she would have kept them. then she said she wouldn't have much to spend if she saved all the oldies. what do you think of this? i couldn't belive it when i asked. i was kindof scared to ask too!
They were more common than now. note that even as recent as 5 years ago, silver was only $4 an once, so it's not as if she (at the time) took million dollar coins to the bank. IN 1970 it was between $1-$1.25 an ounce. It was worth face value and that's what she got for them. Note that in the 80's it shot up rather dramatically to over $20 an ounce (it's currently less than $14 an ounce) and of course a particular coin might be worth hundreds or thousands today, but you can't second guess that.
my dad saved all his wheaties from 1959 until now. he has a full large size pickle jar of them. he says some are really rare! they are stashed away in the basement though. he also has like $20 worth in s mint 1968-1974 memorials! might be some 1970S double dies!
Then you should tell your dad to remove his coins from the basement or they won't be worth the copper they were struck on. The reason I say that is because most basements are quite humid, and humidity is as bad as it gets for coins.
Id tell your Dad that you'd be willing to go through his jar of coins for him, catalog them all and put them in 2 by 2s and put them in a nice binder just for the chance to see what hes got in that jar. Make sure you explain all the benefits of storing these coins properly. Maybe he'd sit down with you and you two could go through the coins together.
i was wrong. i aked him what he did with them and he said they were in his closet. i thought they were in the basement! whew!
