Canadian Roll Hunting

O-train I see you are in the Ontario area, which banks are you getting your pennies from?

Ive always been interested in what goes on on the other side of our fair country with coin hunting. I have alot of success getting pennies from about a dozen TD banks, one RBC branch and one Nova Scotia. I dump my unwanted coin at the TD coin machines too although I've kept more than I dumped. I estimate I've looked at about 700,000 pennies.

Found a 1963 silver dime in 1000$ bag of American dimes.

CND dime.

One would think it would be rough, but I go through a bag in about 20 minutes. I dump about 1/4 of the bag on the table and spread them around by hand. I make a quick scan for oddballs (I often find mercury or foreign). All the while I am listening for the clink of silver. Then I start dragging them across a mat on my table and into my other hand over a bucket. If no silver clinking sounds, they go into buckets. Then I dump the coins into a coin counter that rejects silver. I have only missed one in dozens of bags. Believe it or not - when scanning or pulling across the table I sometimes find errors or proofs.

All other coins I hunt I look at one by one.

When I roll hunt (all denoms) while doing large volumes, time is important, you need to train your eyes to spot oddities, but it will come fast. I do about 3 to 4 boxes of dimes over a weekend and I am mainly looking for silver, or errors. I will occasionally look over a dime with a P on it to see if I won the lottery with the 2000p.

I slide the coins out of the roll in a line and using my index finger on my right hand I tap the top coin off the table into my left hand and repeat, I can go through a roll in about 30- 40 seconds, unless I drop one or 2, or if I find something. The silver usually stands out as soon as I open the roll.

I can go through a block of 10 rolls in about 10 minutes.

For me its about volume, if you are really trying to find silver dimes or even the elusive silver quarters, you need volume, I find roughly $1 in silver a week, sometimes up to $3 (more if I get silver dollars or 50 cents)

I decided about a year ago to up the ante, I was doing about $500 a week (mixed denom) to go to $3000/ week, once I did I started to find the silver I was only hearing about.

The decision to scale up has meant I need to hit more banks, and more often, so this is not for everyone, but if you are not finding the items you are looking for there is only one solution and that is Volume.

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to encourage people.

I just started coin roll hunting. For years I have saved all the pre 99 nickels,dimes and quarters are there any others I should be saving. I'm also trying to put together a set of each big dollars,small dollars,toonies,50 cent pieces,quarters,nickels and dimes and older bills. I'm having a problem finding a bank that will give me the 1$ and 2$ bills as well as the larger 1$ and 50cent coins. Is there a way to acquire these?

I really want to get into roll hunting, so I went to my local TD to order a box of nickels.
The teller said she will order one for Dec 31st, but I got 10 rolls of nickels that they had.
The coins of interest are 1947 ML, 1951, and several from the '60s. Also a 1991 to finally fill in a spot. I haven't decided if I want to save the nickel nickels since they're being melted down. Can't wait for my first box!