Thanksgiving was a little better than usual this year. My 7-year-old and 5-year-old came with me on Wednesday afternoon for a last minute nickel dump-and-pick-up run. We drove a little bit farther than usual to a bank I've had luck with previously and asked if they had a box we could buy (we don't order from them). They had two; one with what looked like uncirculated coins but the other with circulated enders for sure. We grabbed the circulated coin box at 4:55 PM.
On Thursday morning after a quick urban hike with the family my 7-year-old and I opened up the box and during the very first roll my daughter kept saying she had old ones. She knows exactly what she's doing and sometimes messes with me - but this time she was dead serious. Half of that first roll was pre-1960 and ranged from 1938 to 1959. She started at the left front of the box so I started in the back right, and my roll was pretty much a dud. So we kept working toward the middle in our respective directions and she kept plucking oldies - some really nice ones - while I was scratching my head through another dud roll.
She handed me a few from her "side" and I hit a roll with 38 pre-1960 nickels. It struck me we were going through a collection dump.
In the next few rolls we had amassed over 100 pre-1960s, including 2 1950P and a 1950D (which made it the SECOND 50D we found inside a few weeks). We're not the folks who win raffles or get lucky with much but we just decided to take stock of what we already had and then took our time going through the rest of the box.
One corner of that box was HOT, man. The rest wasn't shabby and it was clear someone had also emptied rolls of westward journey nickels probably from the same collection.
I am definitely now past the initial shock and rush, dealing with a HINT of 50D guilt and mystified by the lack of other finds - only one
War Nickel (43P) and a single dateless Philly mint buffalo. NO 38 or 39 keys but holy cow a veritable cornucopia of semi-keys and other better dates plus SO MANY BU early Jeffs.
But here are the tallies below:
38P x 6
39P x 10
40P x 9
40D x 4
40S x 6
41P x 5
41D x 3
41S x 9
42P non silver x 7
42D x 3
43P x 1
46P x 12
46D x 7
46S x 5
47D x 4
47S x 5
48P x 9
48D x 10
48S x 3
49P x 1
49D x 4
49S x 6
50P x 2
50D x 1 (corroded but clearly a Denver minted coin)
51D x 3
51S x 1
52P x 5
52D x 1
52S x 4
53P x 3
53D x 7
53S x 3
54P x 3
54D x 5
54S x 7
55P x 1
55D x 5
56P x 4
56D x 2
57P x 2
57D x 6
58P x 6
58D x 5
59P x 4
59D x 3
PLUS 5 foreign
1 dateless buff already mentioned
2009P x 2
2009D x 3 (one of them BU)
Several early 1960s upgrades and too many westward journey UNC to count.
Sadly it really fizzled out after the first 15 rolls or so but the hits were scattered throughout after. Going to go back and take a look at the other box they have and any loose MWR and buy whatever I can.
I'll begin putting photos below of the better coins, the pile as it accumulated, the roll of 38/40 pre-1960 right after it was opened and some misc fun finds.
I think we are going to put these in a single new Whitman for fun to commemorate this wonderful box I got to pick through with my one kid who loves to CRH.
Posted 11/27/2023 7:38 pm
