My New Rational Towards Half Dollars

It is what I did, so obviously I have no problem with it.

Ultimately it comes down to what is more important... filling the hole or finding the coin in the wild. For me, it was filling the hole.

I'm the same way. Although I'd love to give CRH a try, I don't have the time for it. And my wife would skin me alive if I started buying boxes of halves (or any other denomination, for that matter) to look through and then have to figure out what to do with the rejects when I'm done. I do edge search quarters and dimes (ours come in clear plastic wrappers) when I open a new box at work, and will occasionally look through rolls a customer brings in, but that's about it.

FWIW, all the silver Kennedys in my set (and several clad) were purchased at the coin shop, except my 1967 and 1968, which my grandmother gave me.

Although I love finding anything interesting in circulation (and even more so if it's a hole filler), I'm more apt to make a trip to the coin shop once a week or so and add to my collection a little at a time than wait for it to turn up in circulation (which for some coins, as every day passes, the chances of that happening become less and less).

It is your coins and your money, so what anyone else thinks shouldn't matter. You jsut have to ask why you are doing it and what you expect out of it.

For me the CRH aspect not only wastes some spare time, but I can't smoke while doing it so saves me a bit there of life and moeny. Also I don't dump. Only when I have way too many pennies will I take then to a coin counting machine and either eat the fees or get them into a free gift card thing for a hardware store that I will have the money for later should I need something like a toilet handle, a draink washer or something else.

Halves, they all spend nicely, even unrolled. Actually for some reason people take them unrolled quicker than rolled and without question and seem happy to see them. Since I have to spend the money on things like gas, cigs, food, etc the halves really don't cost anything except to go get them from the bank instead of getting out cash.

Also when you get a ox to CHR, you never know what you will find. Will it be a silver plated than someone might offer you more than face for? Gold plated? Some interesting counterstamp like Lincoln nose-to-nose with Kennedy? Will it be foreign?

Sure I am still missing 1964-D, and 1965 for my set, never found a walker or Franklin in CRH, and only sparsely find a 40%, but I have so much fun finding that one after all that work that would have otherwise been time spent watching a movie on TV that I have seen 1000 times before because nothing else is good on when I can't sleep at night.

CRH or collecting can only ever offer you what you are looking for out of it and each person will have to decide what way is best to get what they want out of it.

If you pass any banks on your way to and from work just check those. If silver is the only thing your looking for then you are missing out on the big picture.

To each their own. My rule of coin collecting is, "collect what you like". I have nothing against the higher grade coins....I think they're awesome and I have a few here and there.

But for me I like the idea of several rolls of "junk silver", and it's fun to get them out every now and then and go through them.

I think funding junk silver at face value is amazing. But paying full bullion price for it seems odd. That's all I'm saying. If you are paying bullion value you should get pure silver.

Of course, everyone is free to pursue the hobby as they like. I just am saying think about your goals. If it is to hold silver, then why get lower purity beat up coins? And if it is to hold coins, then why not get coins in better grades with more numismatic value than silver melt? It seems like junk silver only works as a strategy when it is obtained for less than melt.

I enjoy CRH and that is the fun part, my bank forgot my order this week and the wife and I are bummed about it. It the thrill of the hunt for me. In two years I have found 100Oz, so am I making money on it? Well it depends how you look at it.