Well, kinda... I sorted $2000 in halves this past weekend. My method when opening a roll is to look at the edges of the coins once the paper is off and pull out any silver first (it's really easy to tell), but when I opened one of my rolls I saw gold! I'd heard stories of people finding real gold coins mis-rolled as halves, so I quickly pulled it out and this is what I found. I think I'll keep it, but only because it is silver...someday I will find some gold The plating still looks pretty good, especially on the reverse. Anyway, here are the final numbers from my 4 boxes: 1-1942S (Walker), 1-1943 (Walker), 5-1964D (90% silver Kennedy's)-one of which is gold plated, 1-1966 (40% silver Kennedy's), 7-1967 (40% silver Kennedy's), 7-1968D (40% silver Kennedy's), and 7-1969D (40% silver Kennedy's) All in all, an ok turnout, and I had a lot of fun!
NICE finds...I have only found a hand full of silver in what little I look through...but that is soo much fun!! Speedy
cave troll, great finds on the walkers! I like the gold kennedy as well. Kind of cool. I must agree with you, i have a blast when I look through my rolls. Definately something you can do to take your mind off things. JD
Cave Troll, Nice pulls. You share my passion of searching halves. Keep the gold! I'd bet it's real gold plate!
4000 Kennedy halves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You better go on vacation from work for about 1, 2 or 30 days!
I have the joy of having a great job, so I think I'll kep "going to work." Consuelo (my wife's internet psuedonym) is a doctor and that gives me the freedom to be a stay-at-home Dad. With a "job" like that I enjoy being at work! The halves are a sort of fun escape for me, but it always makes my neck hurt from leaning over looking at dates for so long!
What do you do with them when you're done? Roll and return to bank? Spend? Some of each? Or do you just save them?
Well, some of each. 1) My Dad keeps all of the coins with mintages less than 20 million (with a couple exceptions), so I sort those out for him and sell them to him at face value. That came to about $225 this time, 2) I keep any silver, nicely toned, or otherwise interesting coins that find. (This time I found a 50¢ Bally's casino token and a 1971 half that looks and sounds like it is silver. (the edge shows no copper layer, it's quite strange), 3) I try to spend as many as I can at fast food restaurants, wal-mart, or wherever, 4) I deposit the rest into my bank account at a different bank than where I bought them. When I moved to my current town 10 months ago I opened a bank account and asked the bank if they could order boxes of halves and they didn't know, so I asked them to find out. When I went back they said that they could, so I asked them to order some for me. A week later I was in the bank again and was told that they'd changed their mind and couldn't order them for me. So I started looking for a bank that would order them for me. There is a bank in our Wal-mart and they had a few halves on hand ($220) and they were heavily silver (about $80 FV of it was silver) so I asked if they could order more and they said yes. Ever since then I have been able to buy a couple boxes a week there and I always take them back to the first bank when I deposit them. I think that it is a little bit of sweet justice that the reason that they wouldn't order halves for me is that they didn't want them coming back and now I dump $750 in halves there every week or two.
Cave Troll, I've pulled a few 1974 halves that sound similar to your 1971. I had a dealer look at them and we found they were actually silver plated.. (Similar to your Gold) Under magnification, you may sbe able to see a hint of copper under a chip in the silver plate. I'd be interest to hear.
IIRC, some of the halves from 65 to 71 were silver clad, 40% silver. That maybe what the 1971 half is that you are talking about.
Bill..all halves from 1965-1970 are 40% silver...after 1970 they are clad...if you have a 71 that shows silver it might be plated too... Speedy
Let's not forget that silver clad Kennedy halves were struck in 1976 also. And silver halves have been issued from 1992 to date as well. Now these coins were not issued for circulation - but it is not unheard of to find them in circulation or in rolls.
But the 1992-date silver havles are proof right? I have only found about 5-6 silver halves in cirulation...so far. Speedy
