I'm Wading Through A Hoard Of US And World Coins That Began About 1905!

A leopard cannot change its spots.

Time to add....

that would be fun to pick thru.

Let's all take a deep breath, folks. I'm doing this as a favor for a friend, and she told me no hurry, take a year or two if I want. After all, these three boxes have been sitting on a shelf in her garage since 1986...and she understands that because I collect 1811-1820 British tokens my attention span might be kinda underwhelming by CCF standards.

Also, I was trying to make it pretty clear in my original post that these three generations of Vermonters were not collectors in the same way that people like us, who belong to CCF and bid on coins at overseas auctions (or even ebay), are collectors. These guys were accumulators, hoarders, and pack rats, apparently.

I'll scan a few pieces and post them later to show what's typical in this numismatic agglomeration. Aside from a fair amount of silver melt value, virtually all the non-US stuff is, at best, Cub Scout Merit Badge material...which I'm not knocking, since I earned one of those myself back around when Don Larsen pitched his perfect World Series game.

With a Red Book at hand, my first sort of the minors has already pulled out a couple of key dates in the US material. I'll be looking for varieties, overstruck dates and mm's next, and then I'll worry about the dollars and sets.

One of the leather pouches contained 4-5 pounds of wheatback Lincoln cents, about 80% of which are black and crusty from "environmental damage." I'm guessing something in the tanning chemicals used on the leather caused this. The other pouch, about the same weight, is full of rolled coins, cents through quarters, in paper, and I haven't even looked at them yet.

If I had to identify a "median" coin based only on what I've seen so far, it would be a Walking Liberty half, say 1920-35.

Short-term, the real value here is going to be silver melt...hoping the spot price stays up for a couple of months. Over the long haul, those key dates and mint/proof sets look promising. But nothing particularly dramatic has turned up yet, although I am encouraged to see that all the dates are legible on the Standing Liberty quarters and Buffalo nickels!

Will post a scan in a few hours.

Enjoy the search. We will enjoy the show.

Princetane hits the nail on the head! "Very average" appears to be a pretty fair summary, although my rough estimate based on gross weight alone is over $6K in silver bullion, so while my friend is not going to put her grandchildren through college on these coins, she will be able to get them some nice new iPhones to bring with them.

My scan, chopped into thirds below, shows coins drawn from one of those deodorant tubes, from one of the half-dozen coffee cans, and from various envelopes and jewelry boxes. Haven't really looked into the third large box, but that's where the Indian Head cents and Liberty Head nickels, if any, ought to be stashed. I doubt I'll bother with the rolls and mint/proof sets until I'm back from our West Coast vacation in August. There's my own collection, plus other things happening in real life, like a son getting married, etc.

I did notice that the Morgan in the middle photo below is an 1897-S, and I believe I just saw an 1891-O, so there are mintmarks to check out eventually. But stiil: it looks like mainly melt for the loose coins.

Depending on the year and grade, the 100 pesetas from Spain, in the middle picture, could be worth a lot more than melt.
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1885.html

Steve :)

Um, I need to eat my words, those are definitely not average coins.

1814 Capped Bust half dollar and the 1876 Seated Liberty quarter are lovely coins, they would be WELL above melt, the Capped Bust is gVG and Seated Liberty probably VF.

Those standing Libs could be nice too and nothing wrong with that Commem Half from the 1920s or 1930s. The rest is all nice too, your strength is American silver of the 19th and early 20th century definitely. Great Walker, 1910 Penny and decent pair of Barbers too!

These coins are way too good for the Deodorant tubes!