How Did You Get Your Start In Coin Roll Hunting?

Why, what's in the spare bedroom closet that's such a problem?

Got hooked when I received a 1960 Franklin as a Christmas gift couple years ago. Went to the bank a few days later and asked if they had any halves. Out of 100 I pulled a 64.

Now I CRH 8-10 boxes of halves a week.

My dad got me started roll hunting when I was a kid in the mid-70's, although not intentionally. Every Saturday he would go to the 2 banks in town and pick up rolls of half dollars. I am assuming it was just what came in during the week, as sometimes there would only be a roll or 2 and others a few dozen. The funny thing is, he wasn't even a coin collector, he just knew that there was silver to be found. We did this for a few years and then when the hunt brothers drove up the prices he sold them all, re-invested the money and wound up with a nice chunk of my college education! We never did it on a grand scale, like now with everyone ordering boxes, and we would always re-roll the leftovers by hand. As I got older I lost interest, and I think the hunt brothers incident probably bled the market dry as well. Not sure when exactly we stopped doing it. I always wondered what kind of stuff we found when I was a kid. I had a collection of wheat cents and Buffalo nickels, along with a few stray silver dollars and things I got as Christmas presents, but I wasn't a big collector. I remember the silver we pulled had lots of Kennedies, and also quite a few Franklins plus a few stray walkers, but I can never be sure exactly what we had in our hauls. We had a Red Book, so I'm sure Dad looked to see if there were any rarities.

Fast forward to about 10 years ago. I started collecting again and joined a local club, where I met someone that was getting boxes of half dollars and making use of the coin counting machines that started popping up in local banks. It brought back those memories and I thought I'd give it a shot. My first box yielded a single 1964 Kennedy, but it was enough to bring me back for more, and for a while I was searching 2-3 boxes a week. A couple of years ago, the silver started drying up so I started doing nickels and cents, with an occasional half dollar box every now and then.