Abundance Of Silver (Half-Dollars) Now... Compared To 5 Yrs Ago?

There will always be some, stupid relatives are in abundance. The "greatest generation" has pretty much died off, that dump of coins has pretty much ended. The next era, "baby boomers"" are starting to die off now with their idiot progeny bank dumping their collected coins for the cash. It really stinks, but the one thing mankind will never lack from is an overabundance of dunces!

The important part is if you have fun. If you are finding more than expected, then I'd guess you are pretty happy.

You have to truly love coin hunting, because it's only a hobby, not a money maker. I've been roll hunting since about 1978. I've always said we find more silver now than we did back then. $50 silver in 1980, interest rates 20%, high unemployment, lots of roll hunters, no internet.

I started back up around 2008 and the finds weren't bad, before that we threw back 40% halves, they weren't worth more than face value. For me, things started to dry up about 2011 when silver approached $50 again. Prices fell and collections slowly get dumped back into circulation. I really miss the hobby, but the dismal finds just aren't worth it.

I assume that most of the silver remaining in rolls, especially halves, are a result of collection dumping.

I suspect (but do not know) that during the 2008-2010 financial situation that resulted in the return of a lot of saved coins to circulation (part of the reasoning behind the lower mintage figures in 2009) may also have resulted in an increase of collection dumping.

Does anyone have any firsthand knowledge of whether there was a noticeable increase on silver hauls for roll hunters in the 2008-2010 time frame?

I regularly get boxes of halves in the Detroit area. Out of maybe 6000 coins, I found 1 1969. Then last week I picked up $120 of customer rolled halves and found 25 silver, 6 of which were 90%'ers.

My best coin hunt was actually dumped into my lap. I asked a Wells Fargo teller if he had halves, and he handed me a roll that someone had just given him. To my surprise, most were 40%, some were 90%. All in all, I got silver on all coins in that roll of halves, but 4. My best source for finding silver coins are those green coin machines..they spit out silver dimes,quarters,and Kennedy halves.

Not sure if all of the silver in rolls is due to collection dumping, but who knows?
Of course, halves don't circulate anymore. Quarters and dimes...and nickels do.
Back when, we used to compare QA inspecter's #'s and hope we could get to the bottom of the pallets.
First in, first out. In other words, a pallet of halves silting in a courier's or bank vault would have the oldest boxes on the bottom, with newer boxes on top being shipped out and newer supply coming in replacing them, therefore the older boxes (with the most silver) never seeing light of day. Those were the boxes we wanted.

I still believe there's lots of silver out there in rolls and circulating...has always been there, naturally.