Unusual Roll Hunt Skills You Develop.....

Haha, yeah when my wife helped me search cents I would hear that same noise and tell her "you have a canadian". She was impressed.

One skill I have learned has to do with copper cents. At first I had a hard time telling which 1982's were copper, even when bouncing them. Well now I can tell almost 100% of the time just by looking at them. I test myself all the time by guessing first and only very rarely am I wrong.

although not quite as experienced as you folks. So far its those 60, 70, & 80s LMC that catch my eye, usually my right one.



Silver always has a great distinct sound.

Great post!

By sound I can hear the difference between zincolns and coppers, but that's not hard.

I have to give my wife credit for a couple good finds. She's a loan officer at the bank, her office is enclosed and a ways away from the counter. One day, she all of a sudden heard the distinct "ting-ting" of silver coins and discovered that a customer had cashed in a few rolls worth of Kennedys in the drive-thru. She later bought them all, over 5 solid rolls worth of 40%. Another time she scored me a solid roll of steel wheaties, "silver pennies" she called them.

We were driving to Florida a couple of years ago down through South Carolina. We stopped in McDonalds for breakfast. When paying, I always take a look in the change drawer when possible. I noticed a greasy pencil lead colored nickel on top. I ask the cashier if I could have he dirty looking nickel. She ask why I wanted that particular nickel. I told her that it had a large letter over the dome on Monticello. She looked and was surprised that it did. I told her that nickels made during WW2 had some silver content in them and if it had the large mint mark, then it was one of them. She promptly thanked me for the lesson on coins and then gave me the nickel as part of my change. Small treasures turn up in the most unlikely places.

When I was young I helped my grandfather on his job where we handled a lot of change each week and rolled it all. But before we did, we would dump each denomination onto onto a large piece of plate glass so we could hear silver ( War Nickels included). Since we were close to the border with Canada, we also found some of their and could recognize the dimes and quarters.

As a kid though it was not always great to be able to ID them from sound. There was more silver in circulation back then and it would kill me when I would hear someone jingling their change in their pockets and know it was silver -- but was always too shy to ask! To this day I remember seeing this really tall man (from my perspective as a short kid!) standing in line at K-mart jingling at least 2 silver half dollars in his pocket. I still want to kick myself for not asking him if he would make change for a dollar bill.





Not mine, my grandfather's -- he had been rolling so much by hand for years that he was amazing to watch. He would count out the quarters (by 4s) off of a table top into his right hand. He would then give them than handful of coins a couple controlled tosses while making a channel with his fingers. It never failed. After two shakes the coins would be in a perfect "roll" in his hand. He then took a paper roller that already had the lower end crimped shut; held the open end of the roll about 5-6 inches below the hand of coins coins; and literally pour the coins into the roll off the end of his fingers. With all honesty, I can say I never remember him missing or having the coins not fall into place perfectly. It always reminded me of watching someone who is an artist at handling cards.

When pulling the coins from the table into his right hand, I also remember the first time I worked with him as he instructed me to pull 4 quarters at a time and count ten handfuls. Four was easy. But then he told me I had to pull 5 pennies at a time and count to 50 by 5s.

My 2nd-grader reply to him was, "But I can't 'see' 5 at a time!"
"Well then you need to learn how to see 5."
"How do I do that?"
"Just see 3 and then 2 more before you pull them into your hand."
"Oh... it works! What about nickels?"
"Pull 5 at a time - which makes a quarter - and count to 8 making 2.00"
"Dimes?"
"Pull 5 again, making 50 cents, and count to 10 making 5.00"
"Hey, this is fun!"

I remember going home wanting to show off my new skills to my parents.

And guess how I taught my kids to roll coins...

I can tell zinc vs. copper pennies by weight on my finger. I always give them a flip and listen for the ring to confirm, and I've been right since I started, sometimes I doublecheck the flip on my scale, always right also.

There's probably unconscious visual clues that I'm not aware of. Mebbe I should do a blindfold test tonight..

Blowing on a coin? Wow! That is something I have not heard of before.