I have searched over 100,000 half dollars since January and probably double that with the last couple months at 18 boxes a week in my usual overboard approach to life. I am nearly burned out now. I recently started coin collecting after a 46 year break. I started when I was seven. My folks brought me to the Philadelphia Mint and the Franklin Museum for my birthday. I remember clearly the huge clean room where they made the proof coins. The pristine white uniforms, hairnets and booties. I remember when Kennedy was shot and it was not long after the 1964 halves came out that silver started disappearing from circulation. The clad 40%ers were disgusting to all. I was a huge Lincoln fan but it was amazing to find Indian Heads, Buffs, Mercury and Barber Dimes and Standing liberty quarters, thin as a postcard. We couldn’t afford halves really and we had a few silver dollars but it was too late when we realized they were gone for good, and there was not enough money anyway. My Dad is a magician and we had a few tubes put away with Walkers, Franklins and old English pennies favored by magicians for many years. But that was all and we never started an album. So after the family gave me the family collection around last Thanksgiving, I got the bug again. ( I was fortunate that my brothers were too you to appreciate those years) A friend had sold me 100+ ounces of silver coins the week before I got the collection, totally by surprise coincidence. I got them for a song. There were 60 Silver Eagles, I didn’t even know they existed until then. I had no idea how much silver was in the coins back then and was shocked to find coins that were larger than silver dollars, made from the mints I knew. As a child Dad would get a sack of rolled coins from the bank every Saturday morning and we would sort and collect them. Sometimes if we were fast, Dad could take the quickly rerolled coins back to the bank before noon to reload. We had a stack of albums and a shoebox full of tubes. A relative who traveled the world in the military during WWII provided a coffee can of foreign coins. I was proud of the pile of stuff we gathered and the skills of pattern recognition followed me through many endeavors. Coins came from many sources back then and I would use my allowance to buy type coins that were out of circulation. Two and three cent pieces, the half dime and others. We were lucky enough to find liberty nickels in the rolls and I nearly filled an album. I had a ancient Greek coin and lots of neat odds and ends. We had a few mint and proof sets and when I recently checked their value I found they had hardly appreciated. My Dad must have had a good year in 1986 as I found a commemorative set with a gold coin. Our one and only. I have coveted some of the old double eagles all these years and have yet to purchase one. (I did get a UHR) On the upside, I have since bought proof and/or mint sets for most years at very reasonable prices. In fact I have seriously applied myself to the collection and searched a zillion pennies and all those halves not to mention some nickels, dimes and quarters to have a look. I found lots of time capsules of pennies and filled tubes for the last 60+ years of shiny pennies and have since sorted the last 100 years with the cream of the crops all in neatly labeled tubes. All the early years I had inherited and were already in tubes by year. I hope to nearly fill 4 penny albums very soon. Back to the halves. When I started looking, I had no idea I could find silver, much less Franklins, Walkers and one Barber Half. My first. I have collected about $3000 melt value from the boxes of halves and after filling significant Franklin and Walker albums I have 4-5 tubes spare of each. I have filled four Kennedy albums with non proof coins and in the proof holes I have dozens of clad and even silver circulated proofs from the rolls. I now have 3-4 tubes of errors, mostly machine doubles. Anyone who has searched a lot of halves will recognize some trends in the years. First of all the halves from the seventies sure held up better than the later years and many can be found in mint state without a scratch. The coins from the seventies were nice. I also noted how many varieties of strike finishes there are out there. Clean sharp and shiny strikes to natural coarse matte surfaces and those with thick and thin edges, off center strikes, double reeding fading lettering and a wide range of minor differences can be consistently found. The eighties however had coins that wore well but very, very many coins were struck on worn dies. Horrible dies. Flat hair with no definition. Strikes lat have left depressions in the coin center. Also, the coin surface on business strikes has an often crinkly finish. Many coins have what I read someone describe as sunbursting with a prominent halo around Kennedy’s face. I see evidence of many coins struck on grease perhaps. The hair detail in the nineties must have been redesigned with letters and other details getting a facelift. You can now count the hairs. A very many of the coins are now thinner and the surface metal shows myriad fine scratches, right from the mint, just inside the reeding on the obverse face. The face is often cut deeply, even if the rest of the coin is perfect. Did the alloy change? After the nineties, the coins remain thin and most have deep facial cuts with some improvement with less fine scratched on the obverse perimeter. The cuts are deep, did I say that? Really deep. I recently found an entire box of 1998P coins. All brand spanking new. I believe they were from mint bags, poured into the bank’s rolling machine and never issued. They show a lot of fine blemishes on the face and obverse perimeter. Very fine. I still have them and plan to try and find some gems. I really don’t know what else to do with them. They are mint release shiny and bright with razor sharp and very bright copper reeds. Brand new but have those scratched on so many just from slight touching. Well, I haven’t completely quit although I went through an 18 box stretch with almost zero keepers and no silver. I do know I need a break and need to back off and refresh. I hunt and canoe and am not your typical coin collector. I collect other stuff too though and have pocket knives and M1 Garands from many winters. The grass is growing! I thought I would share some thoughts. 0CD
This is a unique perspective having searched that many boxes over that short a time. Thanks for sharing! PS: I'd keep that box of '98Ps just as they are, were they mine. Put them in my will. Unless I needed the moola.
Thanks for the replies. I would love to hear thoughts from other searchers about the differences over the decades. What would you do with AU condition (or better) coins from extremely worn dies? Hmmm... I need to share some of the stuff I have put aside. My pictures are usually poor, only because I need a light box. has anyone made one? I have a lot of examples of the coins I have written about and more. 0CD
I have to agree with you. I also have found 88-p to be hard to find nice and 86-p, 88-p,89-p and 90 D to not have as much of a "shine". The luster is more subdued.
Noost, just talking about the business strikes I've found, those '98s, both mints, are real lustrous; same with the '95s; almost like glass. Many of them. Zerocd, let us know what you figure out in terms of that light box. I just take most of my photos, now, with overhead ceiling lighting (yeah, I'm a real pro ). Believe it or not, though, I get truer surfaces that way than with any other lighting method I've tried.
I would spend some time outside. My wife and I searched one box (50 rolls) of halves together recently, first time we've ever done that together, and had a lot of fun even though the teller said she thought it had been searched already. I nonetheless found one 40% and she found a PROOF! We were like kids on a treasure hunt. IMHO that many rolls would burn anybody out. My 2c
You might be surprised to find that there is no such thing as a "typical coin collector" and that many people here hunt and fish and engage in all sorts of activities beyond coins. Don't burn out!
My burn outs are always temporary. I may have spare halves in fabulous condition for many years after I finish transfering to albums and will share those. I have only found a few 1987's. They are tough buggers to find. I have one or more tubes of every year and mint mark except 1987. (and 1970) It is very hard to find unmarked NIFCs I have found dozens of proofs including 6 silver proofs. These can be best found by edge searching. They always have broad, sharp reeds. Distinctive.
"Yes", to burnouts being temporary. I went through 25 pounds of foreign coins two weeks ago and I didn't feel like getting back to them for a whole week. At a certain point, I was wondering why I was doing what I was doing. Well, I was just having a burnout. I am going to dig into it again today.
