JFK Half Dollar Roll Hunters: Silver, Proofs And Other Finds

Correct
Thanks for reminding me, though!

It's been a few months since I've found a Walking Liberty half dollar -- let alone an ender in a bank-wrapped roll! After I deposited two boxes of half dollars that I'd already searched at the coin counting machine at a local branch of a credit union, I asked the teller if there were any half dollar rolls. She asked the manager, who told me he could sell me only five rolls. When he placed them on the counter I saw the WLB ender. After I showed him the coin, I asked if he would sell me a few more rolls (while displaying my best sad puppy face). He reluctantly agreed to part with three more rolls. I found one more silver coin (a 1967 Kennedy half dollar) in the eight rolls.

Walkers are always a welcome sight and so difficult to find nowadays.

Outstanding!

A week ago I described finding a collection dump of ten 40% silver half dollars in one of the two Brinks-rolled boxes that the manager orders each week for me at the branch where I've found the largest amount of silver coins. (The other box contained three 1964 half dollars.) On Monday I called her and asked if she would order three boxes this week (because I hoped to find more coins from the same dump). She agreed to do that -- probably motivated in part by my promise to buy the tellers a pizza lunch if I hit another bonanza.

Lightening struck twice. Two boxes each contained one silver ender, and I found 40% silver Kennedy half dollars in all three boxes. The boxes with enders contained 18 silver coins. I found three more silver half dollars in the third box. To top it off, the reject tray of the coin-counting machine contained a silver Washington quarter and a silver Roosevelt dime.

Next week the tellers there will get two pizzas and two bottles of ginger ale. I've asked the manager to order three more Brinks boxes this week (since this is the first silver half dollar collection dump that I've found in bank-wrapped rolls since last December).

My experience is that I generally find fewer silver coins in a box of bank-rolled half dollars with silver "enders" than I expect to find. The rolls in one box display 100 ends: i.e., 10% of the total number of half dollars in that box. Therefore, if a box contains three silver enders, I would expect to find 30 or so silver coins in it. But I typically find only half that number of silver coins -- or even a smaller amount -- in a box with three enders. Once I found a box with two Benjamin Franklin enders -- but they were the only silver coins in that box!

I think the explanation is that because silver coins are slightly heavier than cupro-nickel coins, they preferentially wind up at the end of a roll. But I can't prove this. I also find more obverse silver enders than reverse silver enders. I don't know the reason for this outcome.

Fantastic!