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I started roll hunting about 1977-78. Soon after, the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market. We were entering a recession...I didn't find much silver because there were A LOT of unemployed roll hunters. I did find lots of 40% halves but they were unwanted by buyers because the Hunts wanted as close to 100% pure as possible. Lines of sellers at coin shops with their 90% junk, and full-page adds 'buying silver'.
I sold over 1,000 40% halves right after the last silver run-up, and those were accumulated between about 2010 to 2012.
My first week back in the game about 2009, I scored an 1894 Barber half in a roll that was half silver.
I've found dozens of solid 40% silver rolls since then, but gave up the game about a year ago because the banks kept upping the ante on the fees.
I can certainly imagine! There are probably plenty of people that "come out of the woodwork" (so to speak) every time the price of silver experiences a prolonged raise, all of whom hope to cash in on the craze. It probably doesn't help when word spreads about the possibility of finding near-zero cost silver through coin roll hunting. I believe that's the stage we're in right now: although the price of silver is not as high as it once was, I've gotten the impression that coin roll hunting is VERY popular throughout the country right now.
On the flip side of that, the absolute best success I had coin roll hunting was when silver was $25 or $30 an ounce. I was searching in an extremely heavily trafficked--as far as coin roll hunters go--area, yet maintained a very high success rate for the longest time. It was during that period that I found my only solid roll of 90% silver half dollars.
With that aside, I originally began to search for silver in earnest towards the tail end of the "cheap silver" period. 90% silver half dollars were fairly rare by then, but their 40% silver equivalents were still obtainable with some effort. Up till silver moved past $8 or $9 an ounces, they were selling for less than $1 in my area, so I don't imagine people expended much effort trying to track them down.
Congratulations! That's quite the stash you were able to pile up. I probably have barely 300 40% silver half dollars right now, and that's after 10+ years of intensive coin roll hunting. I think the drastic difference in volume might, at least in part, be related to my lack of enthusiasm for processing boxes. Although I've gone through 25 or 30 since I found out they could be ordered, I've never had much luck with them. Plus, they're almost impossible to get rid of on a regular basis without making enemies of tellers. So, I just stick with anything and everything I can get my hands on outside of that one source.
Awesome! The oldest half dollar I've found was a dateless Walking Liberty. I'm still waiting for something completely out of the ordinary. My two oldest finds overall were a 1900-S
Morgan dollar and 1926-S
Peace dollar, both of which were found in the same $50 or $75 bank bag of
Eisenhower dollars.
Unfortunately I've only ever found 1 of those. I'm still waiting for the 2nd...
I had to seriously scale back my efforts for exactly the same reason as you. At one point, I had a half-dozen sub-$50 checking accounts so I could freely utilize the services of multiple banks. However, the sudden appearance of monthly maintenance fees killed that off really quick- all of the sudden, I needed to have a daily average balance of $300 or more in each of those accounts, or risk being charged fees. The worst was Fifth Third, which sent me a letter stating the fee would be $12 or $14 a month (I'm not kidding!).
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very nice find. I know every single one of us would be doing backflips out of that bank.
But I can't help but wonder HOW these ended up in the bank..
Thanks! I was certainly quite excited as all of this was being handed to me. It took all of my composure
not to start smiling when the stack of 40% silver half dollars was handed to me (all 16 were loose, so I knew what they were the moment the teller pulled them out).
Yes, unfortunately, there's probably a sad story that accompanies these coins. At the time, I thought it might be a death, but as is often stated on these forums, it could be a theft too.
On a somewhat positive note, the general lack of 90% silver in the overall stash might, in fact, indicate that whomever deposited it knew what needed to be held back for sale to a dealer.
There were absolutely no nickels of note, nor were there any quarters.
The fact that the dime roll was only partially full of 90% silver may mean that it was part of an entirely separate deposit, or that it simply got mixed in with some other change.
The 40% silver half dollars are the oddity in this respect, but it may be the case that a dealer simply didn't want them.
Finally, as far as the Wheat Cents go, they were entirely common dates- the only coin that might be worth more than a dollar or two by itself was a 1909 V.D.B.
Quote: I do that as well.
I did it once where there were nickels in it and found a silver
War Nickel!
That's awesome! Congratulations. I've only ever seen regular copper cents in those dishes, although I did find a 1964 dime on the floor in a supermarket years ago.
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I used to eyeball those take/leave dishes.
However, I do not see them much any longer. Most places just round down to avoid the problem.
I still do, but I've never seen anything intriguing enough to want to swap it out for some change from my pocket. Most of the dishes I come across in my day-to-day travels are penny ones, but there is never anything of interest in them.
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Very nice instant collection for face value! I've had some good successes on roll hunting halves, where people have deposited entire silver half collections and I've been the lucky recipient.
Thank you! It will certainly keep me occupied for a long while.
I've never had that kind of luck before, although I've spoken to people that have. One coin dealer I was visiting awhile back mentioned he picked up a complete
Walking Liberty half dollar set for face value!
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Posted 06/25/2016 2:42 pm
