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

Arby, I've a 24-gun "Cannon" safe and really like it. The only problem is it isn't large enough for all my guns and coins. :-/

Maybe you should think larger than I did :)

Was supposed to get 2 boxes on Friday, but they showed up late, so I did not get them. When picking up today, I was told that there was a 3rd box that someone ordered, but didn't pick up, and I said I would take it.

So I did 2 of the 3 boxes.

3rd box will be done later. Of course I don't know which box is the *extra* box, but.....

box 1: 2 x 40%ers, and 1 1995s clad civil war commemorative :-)

box 2: 1 x 40%er, 2 x 1964, and..... 1 x 1893 Colombian Expedition silver Commemorative!!!! My first of this type, and my oldest half dollar find. Time to update the signature!

When I saw the rim below, I knew I had something good. Old tarnished looking silver, nice reeding on the rim. It reminded me of the 1850 Seated dime I found in that it was not screaming silver, but it was also not screaming copper.

I wonder if the extra box was this one ;-)

yeh, back to back boxes, or box to box :-)

I was pretty thrilled, especially with the 1893. But the mintage of the 1995s unc. seems to be about 115,000.

arby, you should just add "LOVE THE HUNT!" to your signature.

box 3 gave up a 76s bicentennial 40%er. Ill take it!

i believe it is a business strike, but I'm not 100% sure.

If it has an S and is not shiny it should be a 40% silver UNC.

I've been doing this a few months, with mixed experience - much better from asking tellers for the few half dollars they have available, or any rolls in the vault that people brought in, not so great with boxes.

Yesterday got 15 halves from the tellers, of which 2 were 90% (one Franklin 1950, one Kennedy 1964) plus 4 40% halves.

A few month ago got the best results, from 7 rolls in the vault (that were hand wrapped so people had brought in the coins). Out of the 140 coins, 30 were 90% (including 1 Barber half 1915-D) and 65 were 40%.

Luck with boxes was worse, only about 1% of interest, divided between a few 40%, some proofs (including 1-2 very nice, one of which apparently silver, plus some post-2001 NICF. No 90%.

Biggest problem was dealing with the bulk of halves that I did not want, took more than a month to spend on groceries, panhandlers, etc. My bank is very nice to order the boxes of halves for me, but they said they did not want a lot of them back, which is understandable. Other banks won't take large amounts from me unless I have an account with them, with associated fees for small balances. The two boxes were worth doing because I was trying to assemble a full set of circulating Kennedy halves from 1971-2001 (without 1987), and I was able to do that.

Anyway, will try a couple of more boxes to see if luck will be better, but it seems the best prospects are for getting odd small amounts from tellers.

Finally, interesting that younger people seem not to know about older coins and their values. The teller had a Franklin in hand and just gave it to me for face, although that must have a melt value of close to $5. Maybe much less interest these days, more of a cash-free economy, or whatever, but hard to believe people don't see something that old and different in design and at least google it, which would quickly show the value. I collected some coins from circulation in the late 1960s, and never got a Barber of any denomination as I recall - I suspect there was a lot more picking through of coins and rolls then.