5 rolls of nickels. First roll 5 of 41s. 4 of 46s. 6 of 47s. 10 of 48s. 9 of 1949s. So that’s 34 out of 40. Yes all s mint marks. Last 4 rolls nothing. Was in shock when I started first 2 were 1946s mint. I knew I had something here!!! But dang
I'd say 100 percent if you lived in San Francisco in the ol' days. Also 100 percent if you buy rolls of circulation strike coins from the mint website
Back in the 60's you never found many S coins in your pocket change...if you wanted S mint marks and lived on the East coast you purchased them from one of the many coin magizines. One major reason.... true you had 707's heading East to West daily but the middle class didn't fly...not much...and that said coins didn't travel either....so you picked out of change P& D's you needed an S go fish.
Even still, here in Northern Maine we never get S mint coins, so it seems that it is the same nowadays. I get my S mints through circulation (usually very ugly coins) or I get them in swaps online. I got the point - I just felt like being a little bit of a punk, since I knew someone else would come in with a better answer.
I can't speak for Buffalo (never been, me and my pappy didn't go to the college hockey tournament that year) but in Northern Maine, I would estimate 1-3 coins of every 5 rolls of nickels would be an S mint. I have many S mint holes to fill, even still.
When I first got interested in coin collecting (in Maryland), S mints were the holy grail. Even for cents, while they were being struck for circulation, I could search hundreds without finding a single S. In the past ten or twenty years, I've found maybe half a dozen in my change, out of probably tens of thousands of cents. I still keep them; I can't help myself. Oddly, SBA dollars with an S mintmark weren't that unusual. (Of course, there wasn't much "usual" circulation on those anyhow.) I'm guessing that if Kennedy halves or gold dollars were struck in SF for "circulation", they probably would turn up fairly frequently as well. Nearly all their "circulation" is back and forth between banks and roll-searchers.
I was trying to fill some S quarter holes in my state collection. I watched my change and other sources, but no S quarters. I live in North Carolina, but my brother lives in the L.A. area. (No, not Lower Alabama.) I had them in my hand in a week. We split Dad's coin collection when he passed. He started collecting at first, but lost interest in his collection. I offered to buy them from him, but he said no, because it was something Dad left him. My father retired in California as well and they kept in touch a lot. I understood. I only got out to see him about once a year. I did get a Beer Mug that he got when he was in the Army and stationed in German 1953-1957. I was too young (8 years old) to understand, so I waited until I was older.
