Advise For A Newbie

Some may argue, but I never return my "dumps" from the same bank I purchased the coin from. Ever.

Success is all about volume-volume-volume.

Be kind to the tellers and managers, it will make your hobby easier.

Read, read, read these forum archives!

Thanks for all the advise. I'm thinking of sticking to pennies, dimes, and halves if I can get any. I just like the pennies because they are $25 for a box and have lots of opportunities to find something worth keeping. I've read on here quarters are a pretty low success rate for silver so I'll probably skip them. I do enjoy finding errors so hopefully I can score on them too. One question I do have, is it worth rerolling the coins before bringing them to the bank? One of my banks has a self serve coin machine and I believe the other branch has one as well...

By all means use the machine.
While you cannot 'tip' tellers some coupons for coffee for the staff is a good idea. You'll soon have all the tellers
on the lookout for you.
For halves the 40% silver is often overlooked by people.
Long gone are the days when banks would give you some wrappers.
Now you have to buy them at an office supplies' store.
Canadian coins had some silver until 1968.
Many roll hunters have mentioned that quarters are disappointing.
People have the year 1964 in their heads. Those they save and the years before.
But not the later dates.
Good hunting!

You should add nickels to your list as well because there's a good bit of things to look for in them as well. V nickels, buffalo, war time, 2009, errors, and varieties.

What are your goals? Roll hunting is for the thrill of building a collection from circulation. Sure, some people get incredibly lucky and find a few coins that will turn a real profit. Your odds of finding a "solid Franklin" box of half dollars are about as good as winning the jackpot in the lottery.

Back when I was hunting boxes regularly, I generally stuck to nickels. An average box would take me about 2 hours from breaking the seal to putting the last coin into a roll. An average box yielded 1 War Nickel (worth about $2 at the time), a dateless Buffalo nickel (worth about 25 cents), and about a dozen 1938-1959 nickels, worth 6-12 cents each. As a liberal estimate, a typical box would net me $3 for two hours' work. From an economic standpoint, I'd have been better off spending two hours in a Chinese sweatshop. It was well worth it to me because I managed to amass an impressively large and nearly complete collection of Jefferson nickels as well as a smattering of obsolete designs and fun world coins. It was a fun way to spend my free time back when I had time to waste.

If you are looking to make an easy profit, stick to cherrypicking through your till--you're getting paid to do that. If you are looking to start a fun hobby, I'd recommend:

Nickels: Try for a basic year set (1938-Present) and then go for the complete P/D/S set. A basic year set should take you about 10 boxes, but the key dates could take 100 boxes to find. You'll also find some good buffalos, some War Nickels, and fun foreign coins as well. As previously noted, 2009s are a bear to find in the wild.

Pennies: Try to complete the entire 1959-2008 set. S coins from 1968-1974 will be tough, but you can complete the entire set (except for die varieties) in 2-3 boxes. Also, keep an eye out for wheat pennies and Indian Head cents.

Quarters: Try to find all of the state, territory, and ATB designs. 2009-2012 are quite scarce.

Halves: Try to complete the set 1971-2001 P&D. Except for 1987, this should be feasible within 2 boxes. Also, look for silver coins (1964, 1965-70) and collector-only coins (1970-D, 1987, 2001-Present).

Dimes: Look for silver and build a 1965-2014 set if that interests you. I personally find dimes exceedingly boring due to no key dates, almost no silver, and no design variety.

+1. The more you search, the better the odds.

I cannot as I find more 1968-1974 S cents than I do Canadian. average about 4~6 per box and am going for a roll of each. I have more trouble finding D from 2000-2008.

What is hard to find will really depend on your area. For example I have done 6 boxes of halves, and not a single silver or foreign coins in them while others find 1 per box on average. Oddly I have found what I think is 5 proofs so on average am finding a proof per box of halves.

That is what circulating coin hunting is all about. You never know what you are going to get or how it got to you and why some coins are in some areas in high amounts while in others they seem scarce like 2009 cents, nickels, dimes.

The thing you have to ask is why are YOU hunting? for collecting or making money? once this is answered then you will have a better idea what to look for. I don't have the eyes to even find WAM and the like so I just don't bother. If not for someone on here I wouldn't have even known I had found a near date SBA dollar.

CWR = consumer/customer wrapped roll. anything you can buy and take coins to the bank in.

BWR = bank wrapped rolls. depends on the bank and where they get them as to how they will be wrpped.

boxes should be "shotgun" rolls. they look like they have been pushed from the outside in and look like shotgun shells. or Brinks boxes will be those shrikwrap plastic rolls that you cannot reuse.

I am thinking the boxes you have might be some that have been dumped in the bank and already searched. I haven't heard of a bank keeping the boxes to put coins back into when they send them off, so I hope I am wrong and your box has something nice in it.

wheats are easy but slow to find. the more you get to search, the more you will find. $25 per box gives you a lot to look through, but could also be problems to get rid of unless you know places to pend rolls of pennies or want to pay for Coinstar to count them for you for @10% of the amount.

I cant help with finding silver, because I have only found about 7 pieces in a year of hunting. 1 dime and about 6 nickels in boxes.

BEFORe you open any rolls, decide what you want and look for them. then when you find one you can set it aside and jsut get a bucket for the rest and jsut let them drop into it since you will be taking them somewhere to spend or dump anyway. find the ones you want before you worry with rolling the rest so you don't make the mistake I did when looking for those State Quarters and ended up needing an alaska AFTER I had seen 7 and forgot to pull any of the out to keep. >.<