Any Advice For An New CRHunter?

My advice:

Establish your requirements - what denomination(s) do you want to hunt? Why do you want to hunt them? What are you looking for?

Create a plan - How will you get your coins? Which ones will you keep? How will you return your coins?

Work out the logistics - What banks will you use? Do they charge for returns? Do they have a coin counter? Are there limits?

For me, I search cents and nickels looking for older collectible coinage, errors and varieties, and high grade specimens. Searching a box of cents will yield dozens of coins that fit this description. Refining your requirements will help create focus on what you want to keep so that in the end, you aren't sitting on boxes of cents with little collectability. For instance, saving all minor class 9 DDRs (unlisted) wasn't a realistic endeavor. It won't take long before you fill up a plastic cup before you realize that there isn't much juice in the squeeze (note: finding these DDRs will help you build confidence and reduce the frustration). Create boundaries/limits (specifications) around what is worth keeping...and what is worth returning to the bank. Nickels are similar, but I think has a better payoff (in terms of building a set from circulation). A box of nickels yields a number of early specimens (mainly Jeffersons, but some Buffalo and V nickels), a few variety Jeffersons, maybe a few errors (clashes mainly), and a number of BU coins. Of course, most BU coins are newer, and you can't keep them all. I build rolls by date/MM, so I am keeping the best 40 (or so) coins I find for each (lower grade coins I had get returned). Believe it or not, its hard to build BU rolls from the 70s and 80s. Harder than for the 60s, 90s - forward. From a value perspective, the more valuable nickels you find CRH are variety Jeffersons from the 60s. Most folks toss these back into circulation.

So spend some time, establish your objectives, list your requirements, and develop a plan. Work that plan for a bit. If it isn't meeting your expectations, revise the plan and move forward. Most importantly, try to enjoy yourself and not become frustrated. And feel free to ask us questions - we are here to help! Good luck on the hunt!

I personally have the most success with nickels. I find silver in every box (how ever little it may be). I find at least a 1940 in every box too. I have only had one nickel box I was highly disappointed with. Happy Hunting!

Lots of excellent advice on this thread.

All I can add is that you should have fun doing it!

My favorite denominations are cents and nickels. The one box of dimes I did yielded a Mercury and a silver Rosie. The box of quarters and the box of half dollars yielded nothing but base metal trade tokens, though there were some nice NIFC halves in the mix.

I've pretty much stuck to cents and nickels.

Since I'm the rare guy who won't take a box back to another bank, it takes me a while to offload the slop. $10 or $20 worth of rolls at a time are recycled. Half dollars (I still roll search them) get fed into a self checkout machine that's known to take them if I'm doing a ten dollar grocery run or something.