aot of old nickels from circulation are not in the greatest shape. i did find a AU 1959 nickel one time in a roll. oh, good luck on the rolls dragons!
My bank also has a coin counting machine which is really perfect if you ask me. I buy rolls every day at different banks, search them and then dump them into the coin machine at MY bank. Yesterday I bought $60 in rolled coins, $20 at 3 different banks, and today I got back $58 from my bank after I kept the coins I wanted and then dumped the rest in the counting machine. Sometimes I buy a few rolls from my bank after I cash in my slip from the counting machine. Yesterday I got a machine rolled, roll of dimes and since it's see-through, I spotted that silver dime right away. It was a pretty decent 1964. I have no clue how to grade coins but it wasn't really too heavily circulated. I haven't had much luck with quarters or halves. I have scored some 90% and 40% halves by asking at every bank I go into if they have any halves. I do better with loose halves than rolled. About 2 months ago, I got 43 rolls of halves at one bank one afternoon and they were all clad. Oh, I work on the road so it's easy for me to buy rolls every day without looking supscious or odd. Today I bought only nickels and pennies. I keep all the copper pennies and nickels pre-1980. I have no clue why I chose 1980 but I did. I was keeping ALL the nickels but it got to be too much so I'd rather just return the pennies and nickels I really don't want to buy more rolls to search. I also buy any Eisenhower dollars they have and I know they aren't really worth much over face value but they are actually hard to come by these days. This is all sort of like having a fun way to save money. Some is worth more than face value and some is not. Don't pass up on machine rolled coins because I find nickels from the 40s and 50s in almost very 1-2 rolls and a wheat penny in probably every 1-2 rolls. Then there's all those copper pennies per roll and roll searching is just a bunch of fun. You just never know when that silver dime or quarter will show up and they do. *~*Joey*~*
If you're not looking for any type of coin, I think the rolls to search, in order, are: Cents, Nickels and then halves. Seriously, I wish you good luck on getitng silver from quarters or dimes. I've never tried to get Ikes from my bank, hmmm. Will have to try. The big tip for Ikes is to keep the highest quality ones. Since they're so big, they get dinged up very easily. So if you find choice ones, make sure to keep those. But yes, they really don't command a premium - there are a couple varieties, but....
