The futility of searching circulating coins for silver- Washington Quarter edition

I mentioned this in another forum, but I met a guy at my coin club that 4 weeks ago bought a roll of quarters from the gas station and found a 32 D!!!!!!!!

Unbelievable!

I have had little luck finding silver quarters (one in the past 20 years), but have found silver dimes and halves much more.

 

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Unbelievable indeed! Improbable, but decreasingly possible.

I've said before and I'll say again that there are ZERO silver coins in circulation that have been circulating for the last 46 years. Every single one found today has been recently taken from a collection or accumulation, many taken by kids from their parent's stash, or by older collectors who are just responding to the economy by spending them or turning them in at a bank which then distributes them in change.

 

In my life time i have found 1 silver quarter, 4 silver dimes, 1 silver war nickel, 1 silver Canadian quart., 2 silv. Can. dimes.

 

Pretty much luck of the draw, Right place right time.
I have not found any silver in my change in a year and a half.
Two silver Roosevelt's in two days.
My 17 year old son handed me a 1952 quarter he received in change
from a local gas station two weeks ago and three days ago he received
a 1952 Franklin half in change at a small local restaurant were I know the owner. He goes to the bank on a regular basis and buys $100.00 worth of halves and hands them out in change. they were quite beat up but hey they were silver.
What are the odds same years different denominations in a two week span
and he is not roll searching.

Stewart

 

I just found a 64 from $100 worth of quarters I was searching for my state collection. But I average about 1-2 silver nickels in every $100 box. They are still there for sure.

 

Until a couple years ago, I would order $500 boxes of halves and quarters from my bank to search for circulated silver. I'd place the order on Monday and pick up the boxes on Thursday. One particular Thursday, I got a little involved on the computer, so I didn't get to the bank until 10 minutes after they opened. I picked up my order of 2 boxes of each, and went home to search them. I re-rolled what I didn't want and returned them to the bank the next day. Laurie, the head cashier, knew that I collect coins and search for silver, and she said, "You won't believe what happened yesterday."

It turned out that the manager of the 7-11 down the street had come into the bank a few minutes before I had to pick up his box of quarters for the weekend. A couple hours later, he returned to the bank to ask if they had any more boxes of quarters. Laurie said she couldn't believe that he could have gone through $500 in quarters that quick. It turned out that when he opened the box he discovered that all 50 rolls in shrink-wrap were silver. That was when a $1K bag of 90% circ silver was selling for $11,000.

You see, boxes aren't "reserved" for any one particular customer order. The cashiers just take the first box off the stack to fill an order. If only I hadn't been fooling around on the computer!

Chris

 

I work at a grocery store and probably see $75-100 in quarters each week. In the past two years I've gotten 4 silvers. A 1944, 1964-D in just below AU, a worn 1964-D, and a 1942 with a nice lamination error across the IBER in LIBERTY. That said I've found 5 silver rosies in the past couple months which makes up most of the 7 or 8 i've found in the past two years total. Wheat pennies are a different story. I've found 170 or more during the same time period. Nothing rare but still a bunch of them. I've found 1 Wartime nickel as well (1943-P). Awesome thread btw.

 

The most I have found is the occasional 1958-D Wheat Cent and the rare Bicentennial Quarter (which I have found 2 or 3 of). I purchased 6 rolls of Lincoln Cents a couple years ago and found only 1 wheat cent. I just look through pocket change now. The way you phrased this put things way into prospective and I totally agree with you.

 

Wish I had read this thread before I wasted my time on 2 boxes of quarters.....no silver, of course. (I assumed that since there are many silver halves out there, surely I could find a couple silver quarters) Somehow I got back $1000.50. So a couple hours of my time earned me $0.50. I guess I'll just stick to boxes of halves. I've also went through a couple boxes of dimes and didn't find any silver or 2009 for that matter. Cents is kind of a joke too....usually 5-7 wheats per box. Nickels are fun, only found 1 silver war nickel though, but lots of other 40s & 50s.

 

In the last couple of months, I've search 4 boxes and 2 bags (a bag is equivilent of 4 boxes) of dimes. In them, I have found 15 silver Rosies.

 

Back in 2006, there was a three-week span where I recieved two silver quarters in my lunch change, and a couple months later got one at the movies. However, I agree those were probably flukes, and although I still look through my change for them, I've pretty much given up by this point.

 

I recently spoke with two owners of liquor stores who said they get silver all the time. Guess people and thieves will spend anything to get their fix.

 

i've received 12 silver dimes in change (1 was a mercury, the rest roosies), 1 40% half, and ZERO quarters. however, my fiancée received 2 silver quarters in one week, and has found only 1 silver dime (a roosie). i guess it's luck of the draw.

 

I used to work at a coin op laundromat and was responsible for emptying the machine coin trays. $1500 in quarters per week, and in 4 months I found 3 silver Washingtons.
A 1948, a 1954 and a 1961, all from the same machine.
However, two years prior, I bought lunch at Wendy's. I received my change and voila! 3 silver Washingtons. I was 5 minutes away and a light bulb went off.
I went back and bought a water for 99 cents and paid with a $5. Since tax brought that to $1.06, I got $3.94 back, and there they were... 3 more silver quarters. I did this one more time and the teller said. .."we received a roll of silver quarters from the bank along with the other rolls. She told me she had bought $3 worth... (that's all she could afford) and was giving out the rest as change. I was the only customer who had caught on. I bought 7 more silver quarters from her, all that was left.
You just never know.

 

I agree with the numbers and I don't CRH for these. But as with everything there is always the fluke factor. Last year I got two rolls of pure silver quarters from my cash drawer at work of all places. Tried finding out where we got them from to buy up every roll they would give me, but never found out what bank we drew it from! Probably someone who rolled their silver up and said the heck with it is my guess.
So the moral to this is.......you never know!

 

Silver quarters are hard to find. Have never found one in a box from the bank. I did get one a couple weeks ago from the quarter machine in the laundromat. The search goes on!