Back when I first started collecting in 1977 my parents used to take us to a bank which was in a town smaller than Mayberry and the bank tellers used to let my brother and I sit at a table behind the tellers and search rolls of half dollars. Back then we would find silver in almost every roll... whether it was 90% or 40%...and we'd only had to pay for what we found.... instead of buying the rolls and taking them home ..which is much more feasible for a 12 year old with not much money. Those days are long gone. Try finding a bank today that will let you do that. That's how I completed my Kennedy Half set in 1977....
My trove was a restaurant my mom (a teacher) used to take us to in the 50's when she had to stay after school once every two-weeks for "bus duty" till the last bus had left. She had no time to cook, so we went to a restaurant that would let me open the cash register and hunt to my heart's content. I stll remember when I found the 1916 Merc, flipped it over and saw a mint mark and then almost cried when it was an s.
@Indianhead65 This is hard to believe, but, in the mid 50's the bank would let me sit in the vault and roll coins for the tellers. Like you seem to say, it was a very different atmosphere back then. A person was trusted until they proved that they couldn't be trusted.
I imagine there are still a few Mom and Pop stores that would allow that, but most of them were put out of business by Walmart.
