2013 End of the Year!

So I haven't been posting very much in the last few months as I have had a lot of personal changes and the weather hasn't really been conducive to a very frequent coin roll hunting campaign. Nonetheless, I kept going on.

This year, I've searched ~$12,000 and found 64 silver coins. That was a little bit less than half of my goal of searching $30,000 but I still view the year as successful.

2013 Totals		Value Searched	Silvers Found
Dimes		$6645	34
Half Dollars		$3,248	23
Quarters		$1,590	0
Nickels		$384	0
Pennies		$92	0
Total		$11,867	59

I'm going to stick with the $30,000 year goal and see if I can finally hit it!

Thanks, everyone and Happy New Year!

CRH 10/24/2013: 1924 Wheat Cent Find

Here's a quick post for all of you penny roll hunters out there! I don't usually search up the cent rolls, but I'll be willing to take them if a banker offers them up - you never know what you might come across. I've also never pulled a Indian Head so eventually I'll get lucky and pull something neat.

I wanted to share one of my more recent cool finds - 1924 wheat penny. It even has a little mark down by where the mint mark would be, but it's definitely not a P or an S. Nice try, though!

 This photo is taken through with my phone through a 10x loupe from Harbor Freight! Looks like this worked out reasonably well.

1924 Wheat Cent found Coin Roll Hunting

10/26/2013: 2002 S Proof Kennedy Half Dollar Find!

I know it's been a while since I've updated this blog with some of my recent coin roll hunting finds, but I've been continuously searching the coins and setting them aside. Maybe I'll get a chance in the upcoming days to go back and update with some photos and stories behind some of them.

Today, I stopped off at one of my primary branches where I do my banking and did the normal searchnig questions asking if they had any half dollars or customer rolled dime rolls. To my surprise, they had a box of halves in stock -- which is very out of the ordinary for them since to my knowledge they do not order coins for people. Either way, they had $300 in rolls that were going to go unclaimed so I swooped in and eagerly grabbed them up.

They turned out to be yellow machine wrapped halves and I didn't find any silver. I did get a really neat 2002 S Proof Kennedy Half Dollar, though. This one is one of the less valuable clad varieties but it's always nice to pull S proofs out of circulation. Too bad it's got pock marks!

I've ordered $1000 more in half dollars from one of my favorite banks for next week so let's wish me some good luck.

2002 S Clad Kennedy Proof Coin

CRH 9/26/2013: CWRs "Merc" the Spot!

I was able to grab a handful of a customer-wrapped dimes from one of my local branches. Lucky for me, one of them contained an awesome silver 1944 Mercury Dime. I also got yet another 1964 silver Roosevelt as well! I just keep stacking those silvers now.

Silver is still out there!

Obverse of my 1944 Silver Mercury Dime Find!

Reverse of my 1944 Silver Mercury Dime Find!

CRH 9/22/2013 : Nickels Aren't Always Made of Nickel!

I don't usually ask for nickel rolls from the bank too often since they're pretty involved to look through. Unlike quarters, dimes, and to some extent half dollars, nickels have to be date searched in order to find anything really of interest. That's because the nickel edge design hasn't changed since the late 1800's when they moved to the Liberty "V" nickel! Although you can sometimes find some cool things like Buffalo Nickels, Liberty "V" nickels, or the occasional 35% Silver "Wartime" nickels, you have to look through billions of 1964's and 1999's to get there. Literally, over 2.7 Billion nickels were minted with a 1964 mint year and about 2.3 Billion nickels were minted with a 1999 mint year. That's a lot of chaff for little reward. I did find a key date 1939-D nickel out of a roll once before, but it took a lot of tired eyes to come across it. I'm also figuring that someone else is coin roll hunting nickels in my area since I never come across anything very good.

I decided to grab a few customer wrapped rolls from one of my favorite banks figuring that I'd just try to "play the game and get lucky". When you're not searching any denomination particularly hard it's somehow seems more random. Oh well.

The teller was nice enough to tell me (pun?) that if I was searching for silver that I'd be happy with one of the rolls since he knew for a fact that it contained at least 1 Silver War Nickel. That's awesome! Finally a teller that doesn't take advantage of the fact that they get paid to sit there and coin roll hunt when they're not being pestered by annoying customers like me! I scooped up a small handful of his rolls and hurried home. When I peeled through the roll, I noticed a lot of reddish-orange color corrosion on most of the coins. That seemed a bit out of the ordinary. In that one roll that the teller pointed out I was able to get my first 35% Silver "War" Nickels of the year, both 1943-P.  You can tell that they are war nickels because they are the only nickels to feature the large P, D, or S  mint marks over the Monticello on the reverse! They are the lowest-value junk silver coin from the 20th century available to coin roll hunters today.

2 1943-P Silver War Nickels Found Searching Coin Rolls from the Bank!

Silver War Nickels have large P, D, or S Mint Marks on the Reverse

CRH 9/13/2013 : Founding Father Silver Half Find!

I've been having some pretty good luck with half dollars ever since moving to my new location. In the past I'd purchase many half dollar boxes and not pull a single silver. Right now, I'm getting about a silver half dollar in each of the last 5 boxes I've searched. Usually they're the 40% variety, but it's all profit when executing on those 5 secret words for getting silver from the bank.

I've decided to start setting aside some of the NIFC half dollars that I come across in case I can put together sets to flip to generate a bit more cash from this endeavor. Stay tuned to see if I'm able to put together any sets for more money!

This last half dollar box was pretty good to me. I started hitting a decent number of good-looking NIFC coins to go in my new collection. I now have an almost entire set of 1992 through 2001 coins, including both P and D mints. While tearing through the rolls this guy fell out. I literally jumped for joy at my first 90% silver half dollar find in a roll...and it's a 1952 Silver Franklin! Neatly toned, but he has a fresh machine rub mark on his chin from the rolling process.

1952 90% Silver Ben Franklin Half Found Coin Roll Hunting!

Reverse of the 1952 Silver Franklin Half Dollar Found Coin Roll Hunting!

To keep things even more interesting, I got yet another silver half out of that box : another 1968D 40% silver. But with all of the glory of pulling my first 90% silver half I've never been so unexcited by a 40% silver half.

1968 40% Silver Halves are not as good as 90% silver!

Needless to say I will try to order some more boxes in the future!

Embossed Masonic Penny Found in a Coin Roll!

Along with all of the incredibly valuable finds that you will pull out of coin rolls when coin roll hunting, you occasionally come across a peculiar but otherwise menial find that will pique your interest but will not line your pocket. Most often these come in the form of foreign coins, but periodically you'll cross paths with one of the embossed coins, most often pennies. The coins have an etch, carving, or stamp that had some meaning to someone or commemorates an event. These coins are typically made by individuals, but some organized groups have made and sold them for special events such as the bicentennial of the US. Most have no premium but many coin collectors and coin roll hunters collect them as a curiosity.


I happened to come across an embossed coin this week while hunting through some customer submitted penny rolls and noticed that this wasn't your run-of-the-mill bicentennial carved penny. It's shown here on the left, next to a more typical JFK penny carving that also exists in my collection. Definitely click on the photo to see a larger image.

The penny I found has the Masonic Square and Compass stamped into it. I won't delve into details about the Freemasons, but I recommend anyone who's unfamiliar with the group to take a few minutes to learn a little about them.They're a somewhat mysterious group in popular culture, but Wikipedia estimates that there are about 2 million in the US.

My guess is that this very coin is a challenge coin within a specific lodge or a pocket piece of a member that somehow escaped into circulation.

CRH 9/07/2013 : 50th Silver Milestone!

I haven't been posting much the last few days but I have been searching dime rolls again. After going through about $350 I was able to pull out 3 silver Roosevelts which is about on par with with my average number of silver pulls in a standard machine wrapped box.

These 3 silvers helped me to finally hit my 50th silver since April of this year, but I'm well behind of my goal of getting to $30,000 searched since April. I guess I'll have to start hitting the half dollar boxes full force again!

Here is a photo of the 2 more circulated ones. Too bad I'm in a Starbucks and the lighting doesn't let me photo the shinier 1964 one!

1946 and 1960 Silver Dimes found Searching Coin Rolls!

CRH 8/29/2013 : Foreign French in Dime Rolls!

I have been having sort of a drought of coin roll hunting opportunities the last few days and finally had a chance to hit up one of my source banks for some rolled dimes, my old standby! It's been a while since I've hunted dimes.

I tore through the 50 machine-wrapped coin rolls (MWRs) but didn't hit any silver coins. I did come across two out of the ordinary 1941 coins, though. The most interesting part is that they were in different rolls. I got pretty excited since even much of the non-US coinage from that era was made with silver, but it wasn't to be.

Though they are very pretty, these 50 centimes coins from France are only made of a bronze-aluminum alloy. They are the French equivalent of the half dollar, but they're about the size of a US dime (50 centimes diameter is 18mm compared to the 17.91mm of the US dime).

There were over 82 million of them minted for France in 1941, but it seems like they can be sold for more like $1 on the internet! Some quick research shows that there are many die varieties out for these.

Obverses of the 2 French 1941 50 Centimes coins found Coin Roll Hunting

Reverses of the 2 French 1941 50 Centimes coins found Coin Roll Hunting

08/20/2013 : Foriegn Coinstar Finds!

I always try to make a habit of checking the Coinstar machines whenever I pass by them. This is partly because I'm super cheap and the idea of finding free money appeals to me and partly because of the possibility to find some interesting or valuable coins. In the past I've found US silver coins like Mercury Dimes and silver quarters hanging out in the reject slots of Coinstar machines.

Today I found some foreign coins that were in the reject slot. I don't really know much about foreign coinage, so I'm going to post these around on some of my online communities to see if someone might be able to shed some light on them.

From my very quick and brief research, the Yi Jiao coin is apparently 1/10 of a Chinese Dollar, called the Yuan (¥). I do have a very large Asian population in my city so this makes sense that it might slip into someone's coin jar.

 1 Jiao (角) = 1/10 Yuan(¥) . The Yuan is the Chinese Dollar.

 2007 Yi Jiao Coin -  1   1 Jiao (角) = 1/10 ¥ (the Chinese Dollar)

Unfortunately, I don't know much this other coin, but it sure looks cool! Let me know if you have any information on it.

Coin Roll Hunting is Profitable! You CAN Make Money!

I’m really into coin roll hunting. It’s by far one of my favorite hobbies and I definitely enjoy blogging about it and sharing the secret with you all. I’m also pretty active on a number of forums that cover the topic and it seems that I’m always at odds with people that claim that coin roll hunting isn’t worth the time it takes to do, you can't make money coin roll hunting, and it certainly can’t be profitable. This pot was only further stirred by my blog post on here entitled “Is Coin Roll Hunting Worth It?”, which caused a lot of readers to reach out to me on the many forums with challenges. Even today I was pulled into a discussion where the profitability of coin roll hunting was attacked. To put it bluntly, those who are not profiting are just not doing it right. So, I’m determined to present my model for coin roll hunting, which works for me and may work for many of you. It also won’t work for many of you. That’s the luck with this sort of thing, and without moving or dedicating a prohibitive amount of time there’s actually nothing you can do.

Get it? This about change!

   1. Location, Location, Location!

First, let me talk a little bit about where I live which probably the single biggest factor contributing to the profitability of my coin roll hunting and ultimately how this is all able to make money. I live in a moderately-sized urban city. We have professional sports teams. We have a pretty strong dedication to tourism. We have skyscraper corporate bank locations.We also have a large older population of people, many immigrants, who worked their way up in the world and are now passing their estates onto the next generation. Sure, all of these things may contribute to better finds which certainly leads to better profitability, but  the single biggest key to success based on location is the infrastructure that all of this commerce necessitates in the community. There has to be enough businesses and storefronts to support of all of these people and that means that people need to make change.

There are probably between 50 and 60 bank branches that are within a comfortable walking distance of where I live and where I work. I do all of my coin roll hunting activities on foot by walking to branches that are conveniently located to wherever I am at the time. I never have to drive to any of my banks and this really cuts down on the main cost that a coin roll hunter will bear from their hobby. If I have a particularly heavy load to drop, I just make the 4 minute walk multiple times in the same day. If one teller seems tired of me that day, I just move onto another branch. Simple!

The competition between these branches also makes coin roll hunting very easy. All of the small businesses like food markets, drug stores, and souvenir shops in the market districts get their coins from these branches so any coin orders a hunter would like to add on is just “another” dime box that they’re ordering for their many buisness customers. I sometimes have to wait in line when I'm dumping my coins into the counting machines as the business members dump their weekly till. (This is also a great time to scout coins -- Is that a silver dollar right there?) The banks around don’t really complain about providing coinage because they don’t want to lose you to the bank next door (literally, it's right next door).

Even better, much of the public transportation is free (well, our tax dollars fund it!) since the city wants to ease up much of the car traffic in the city, so this makes traveling to banks even easier. Just hop on and go to another region to a whole new set of tellers who have no idea why you want a box of pennies - all free of charge.

Exploit the natural strengths of your location.

    2. Never, EVER pay a fee for coins or to return them 

Coinstar charges a 8.9% fee. This will not end well.

There’s no reason to ever pay a fee to get coins to hunt or to return them. The expected value of a box over its face value is much lower than the fee that I’ve heard of banks charging, typically between $5 and $12. Coinstars are good for finding coins in the reject slot, but almost never to return them. Trust me, you won’t stay profitable for long paying fees like their 8.9% rate. Many banks are willing to provide coins at no additional charge as a convenience to their customers and many others even offer a free coin counting machine that will save you a load of time and money on the dump.

If you don’t have access to a machine, rolling isn’t really that bad if you plan ahead and always have paper rolls available. Remember – banks will almost always give you paper rolls for free so NEVER pay for them, either!

Avoid fees at all costs and hunt aggressively for banks that won’t charge fees!

  3. Find other channels for revenue 

I’d like to think that my posts and stories of hunts and results are entertaining or at least semi-informative. But, that’s not the only reason why my site exists. Companies are willing to compensate me for the exposure they get from my readers. This just adds to the earnings from this wonderful hobby. Fortunately, having a blog isn’t the only way to generate additional revenue! Entering into various banks very frequently helps to keep the coin roll hunter informed of promotional offers that banks have available, not to mention the customer rapport that develops. I really think that a lot of offers have made their way to me based on my frequent interaction with the tellers. Just this weekend I was asked if I wanted to talk to the financial consultant at the branch since he had some new and interesting promotions to share with me.  Making more money with my money – isn’t that the goal of profitability from coin roll hunting!?!

The finds aren’t the only funding! Find the other types!

Final thoughts:

Coin roll hunting is profitable for me, but as you can see a lot of it is really just where I’m located and how I’m able to exploit my environment to make money. I also utilize my coin roll hunting hobby to launch other profitable ventures that just grow the earnings from this hobby even when I’m not searching. Many of these tips may not be possible where you’re located, but you might be able to use these tips to your benefit in your own environment and ultimately make some money by coin roll hunting and remembering your 5 Magic Words for Free Silver Coins. Those bags of money sitting around won't just be just full of zinc pennies anymore!

CRH 8/15/2013 : Bill Roll Hunting? 1969C $50 Star Note!

So you all know this is really a coin roll hunting blog, but I always ask for cool and interesting money when I'm in a bank since you'll never know what the bank teller has in their drawer if you never ask. Usually I get shown a bunch of gold dollars or maybe even a few $2 bills, but just a few days ago a teller told me she had all of those "and some old bills that you might want to take a look at". Turns out she's starting to set the cool things aside for me and youngster (about 10 years old the story goes) who also collects. That's awesome that young people are picking up interest in this hobby!   (I say this as a 24-year old...)

She showed me a bunch of things, mostly of inconsequential value or interest, but I did grab one of her $50 bills. It's a Series 1969C Star note with a small-ish serial number that starts off with 2 zeroes. There are 2 numbers under the black mark.

Unfortunately, it also has a sizable tear so I'm doubting that it's actually worth anything over $50 but it does make a cool little story. Why can't I ever have nice things!?!? All of my silver coin finds are dirty and all of my bills have tears but I guess getting circulated money is sort of the gig in both coin roll hunting and bill roll hunting?

Anyone have ideas on the value of this thing?

Circulated 1969 C $50 Star Note with a lowish serial number - doubt any value over face!

CRH 8/13/2013 : First Silver Half Dollar Ender!

I've finally found a bank that will allow me to coin roll hunt half dollar boxes without too much trouble. Luckily, I have very easy access to three of their braches, all within a comfortable walking distance of my home and work. I started an account with them a few weeks ago (mostly just for their convenience as a source bank for dimes and other coins) and I was very happy  that they had no problem ordering half boxes for me. This is the same branch that I got my last set of Brinks half dollars from and found a 1968 silver half, but I'm NOT going to share the name of the company so don't even ask!

This box was no different in that I found a silver but I also hit the first of a common coin roll hunting dream: the sought-after silver ender! It's even cooler that it's a half dollar roll. In all of my time searching dimes I have yet to hit an ender of any interest.

The 1967 silver JFK half dollar ender I found is very dirty, especially on the border of the JFK features. For some reason my luck is always getting me these incredibly dirty silver coins when I search through rolls. Yet free silver is good silver and I'll take all of it that I can get. That's 2 silvers in 2 boxes that I've picked up from this branch so this is working out VERY well for me by CRH standards.

That's 20 40% silver half dollars found coin roll hunting and my 48th total silver for the year (since April)!

1967 40% silver ender roll find!

08/03/2013 : Saved Some Silver Dollars!

Well, not real silver dollars. I was at my dump bank, which is now a very convenient walking distance away, returning all of my sorted coins from the past few weeks of hunting when an older man came up to me and asked if he could use the machine. Being the super-smart coin roll hunter that I am, I let him go ahead of me to drop his coins in. Then, I spotted them. There were some big honking coins he was putting in, along with a handful of half dollars and gold presidential dollars. I didn't have the heart to ask him if I could search through all of his coins, but I did ask him to sell me any of the Eisenhower silver dollars that he had and was able to grab 4 before they went into the machine. I bet there were some other cool things that simply slipped away for another coin roll hunter to find sometime later!

Eisenhower Silver Dollars are no longer very common in circulation

The Eisenhower silver dollar is a 31.8mm diameter dollar coin, making it the same diameter as both the Morgan and Peace Dollar series; the true silver dollars. The Ike silver dollar actually doesn't contain any silver at all (at least in business strikes - a 40% silver proof coin was also made) so it's not worth more than face value. However, casual collectors often have an interest in these larger-than-normal and rarely seen circulating coins and they can be sold for a very small premium.

 

CRH 7/25/2013 : Brinks Half Dollar Cube Silver Loophole!

Now, I've been coin roll hunting for a year or so before starting this blog and even though I always ask for half dollars whenever I'm at the bank I've never really had success searching half dollar boxes. I've tried many times, but I never really came up with anything worthwhile besides a heavy load of half dollars and a pile of clad Kennedy coins covered in up to 25 unique hunter's markings. Nonetheless, I placed my order for a box and figured I'd try it in my new city that I live in.

I picked up my super heavy box of half dollars at the branch closest to where I work and carried them over. From a quick display of my Google-fu, a box of half dollars weighs about 25lbs! Not exactly the heaviest thing ever, but it was a bit uncomfortable to carry down the street. I always keep my coins and boxes concealed since it says the monetary value in big bold letters on the side of the box for all to see. This bank uses Brinks as a supplier, which features clear rolls on the smaller denominations and a neat little cube half dollar box. I have heard rumors that Brinks is removing the silver from the coins that they sort, but my finds last week indicated that it's really not the case and you can still find silver in Brinks' coin boxes. Here's a photo of the cube box that I sorted through.

$500 Brinks Half Dollar Box for Coin Roll Hunting

I must admit that the cube box design is a lot better than the longer, flatter box that some coin box suppliers are using, such as the N.F. String boxes from Loomis. The Brinks half dollar coin roll boxes stack the rolls in 2 layers so the box is much shorter and easier to store. The only downside is that you can't count the rolls without opening the box. The inside of the box has some instructions for how to open the plastic rolls, but the half dollars are actually housed in paper rolls. Go figure. He's an image I was able to search out on TreasureNet. It's just like mine!

Brinks $500 Half Dollar Box without plastic rolls

 I searched through the rolls and thought I was going to be skunked yet again. The good sign was that I wasn't seeing nearly any coin roll hunter markings which leads me to think that the rolls weren't being hit as hard in my region. In all of my coins I was able to uncover a 40% silver 1968 D half dollar, which is my first ever silver half dollar coin roll hunting find that I pulled from a roll! So you actually CAN find silver half dollars in coin rolls. Those "5 magic words for free bank silver" guys aren't just pulling your leg that the half dollars are really the denomination to search! Here's a photo of my lucky find! For some reason the 1968 half dollars keep finding their way to me!

1968D 40% silver half dollar find Coin Roll Hunting - Silver Loophole!

That brings me to silver number 47 for my retirement since April!

CRH 7/22/2013 : Clear Wrapper Brinks Box Results!

I made a trip over to a bank branch near my workplace for yet another coin roll hunting adventure on my lunch break. In my last few visits there I noticed that they always have a stock of those Brinks clear plastic coin wrappers, but I haven't been able to land any silver coins. I'm thinking there might be a sniping teller there getting the easy pickin's from the clear rolls and never passing them onto the customers. I was determined to make that change today.... by buying a whole box. They can't take what they can't see!

After work I tore open the Brinks box and quickly skimmed all of the rolls through nice, easy to search clear plastic wrappers. In total, it took about 2 minutes to search the entire box and locate the one lonely silver through the clear plastic roll: dead center in the middle of the dime roll. I could immediately tell it was a US silver dime because the reeding was a bit less pronunced than the typical Canadian dimes that you'll come across while coin roll hunting.

Coin Roll Hunting for Silver in Clear Dime Wrappers -- Easy to Spot the Silver!

When I popped open the dime roll and worked my way to silver I found yet another 1964 US silver dime! I'm sure finding a lot of these lately! Silver coin number 46.

5 Magic Words for Free Silver from the Bank - Found another 1964 Silver Dime !

The best part is that the bank told me that they could order me boxes of half dollars so don't be shocked if I start seriously hunting half dollar rolls in the near future. That's the first bank in my area that would be willing to order them for me so I'll have to take them up on their offer.

CRH 7/13/2013 : Two More Silver Dimes!

I'm back at it once again! I made a quick run down to my dump bank to deposit about $380 of already searched coinage and then made my way to other 3 of my "Big 4" banks.  These are banks in a somewhat wealthier part of town that caters to an older crowd and I've signed up for accounts at all of them. I can dump at my dump bank (with the coin return machine) and then walk about 50 yards to a cluster of 3 totally great source banks. There are a lot of really good finds in this area, but apparently there's a fair bit of competition from other coin roll hunters.

First, my receipt from dumping my coins in the coin machine. Some good variety there, but you can definitely tell I'm a fan of the dimes. Hey, I like me some silver!

Receipt from my coin roll hunting dump into a coin machine. Lots of dimes!

The best thing is that I'm moving to that neighborhood in about 2 weeks! That's real coin roll hunter dedication!

Anyway, I slipped into my first bank and grabbed $9 in cents. I found a number of wheat cents, but the coolest ones were a 1950 S and a 1955. I looked extra closely and it wasn't a doubled die. Finding a 1955 doubled die would have certainly made my day! Alas.

I moved onto my next bank, which is a branch that I haven't been into very often and found that they didn't have any half dollars. While I was waiting, a guy next to me asked as if they had any "funny money" and then spouted off a list of things like Kennedy 50 cent pieces and $2 bills. Luckily for him, I had 10 $2 bills in my pocket. We kindly traded bills and moved on our way. Competition is about!

I moved onto my last bank and waited in line while 2 people asked for half dollars in front of me. The competition is really tough here! When I got to the teller, all I could get was $150 in CWR dimes. After searching through them in about 10 minutes I'd uncovered 2 silvers: 1954 and a very dirty 1964. The '54 silver dime has a very nice white coloration to it, like you'd expect on a silver coin, but boy is that 64 ugly!

CRH 07/13/2013 : Finding Silver Dimes in Bank Roll Change! 1954 and 1964 Dimes

Total silver count at an even 45 since April!

The 5 Magic Words for Free Silver Coins

If you're a reader on my blog then you're already in on the secret for scoring free silver coins from the bank: coin roll hunting. Today I heard an advertisement on the radio for someone looking to make money by sharing the secret with you. That's great for them, but I do it for free!

Their little spiel is that that they will teach you the "5 magic words for scoring free silver coins at the bank". In honor of them, I thought we could think what those 5 magic words for coin roll hunting might be. I never paid for their lessons and neither should you!

Some quick ideas that came to mind:

What are your 5 Magic Words To Get Free Silver Coins?

1. "Can I have a box?"
2. "Do you have half dollars?"
3. "Gimme all da silver now!"
4. "Heck yeah I'll take silver!'
5. "I'll take that in silver."
6. "How many rolls is that?"
7. "I know the secret words!"


I gotta run now but please add your own in the comments below and be sure to check out my latest coin roll hunting journeys here!

CRH 6/29/2013 : Teller Tray Yields Free Silver!

Saturdays on which I don't volunteer are one of my main days for picking up coins and today I was able to make it to 4 banks to get a ton of rolled coins. I haven't really had time to start going through them all, but I just had to share my first finds of the hunt.

I really love coin roll hunting through half dollars! I always ask for half dollars whenever I go to the bank and usually I'm told that they have none or very, very few that I can pick up. But I always try! Today it worked out for me a little better than usual. One of the source banks told me that they had $11 to give me and threw it in one of the bill envelopes and stapled it shut. I just put it in my backpack with the rest of my coins I asked for in my coin roll hunting and went on my way. When I got home I tore open the envelope, poured them out and realized that the first coin to fall out was a 1968 D 40% silver half dollar! Then, the next one was also a 1968 D silver. And the next was a 1968 D silver. Then the next.... they just kept coming!

Not the best photo of my finds, but it should do the trick!

CRH 6/29/2013 -- 18 40% Silver 1968 Half Dollars From the Bank!

In total,  18 out of the 22 half dollars making up my $11 order were 1968 D 40% silver Kennedy half dollars! This had to be a coin collection windfall that someone deposited. Finding that many silver coins in a teller tray isn't common at all, but having them all end up the  exact same year is way beyond coincidence. Maybe someone was stockpiling silver half dollars way back in 1968 but decided that they didn't want them any more and released them back into circulation. Guess they forgot about the silver part. Too bad!

1968 40% Silver Coin Value
As of this post, the silver price is 19.60/oz, which makes each one of these 40% silver half dollars worth about $2.90 each, or $2.40 over their face value. Since I found 18 of these, I made $43.20 over face value in the 30 seconds it took to make the transaction. The silver loophole is real!

This is my best single silver haul of the year so far and brings up my count of silver coins found this year to 42! The 5 magic words for free silver - without the box!

I still have hundreds of more dollars in nickel rolls, penny rolls, and rolled dimes to look through so I imagine that the good coin roll hunting finds will keep coming in!

CRH 6/25/2013 : Proof in the Nickels!

I've been trying to mix it up a little bit and get some variety in the coins that I'm searching, so you might start seeing more posts about the nickel and penny roll hunting that I've been doing.

I do my best to hit the nickels, but I almost never find anything worth sharing with you guys. I am currently working on a completing a Whitman Jefferson Nickel book entirely from coin roll hunting and I do occasionally find coins for it, but they usually aren't too special -- for example, I did fill my 1954 S nickel hole today. Since starting this blog, I haven't found a silver war nickel! Talk about a bad streak! 

Today, I was only able to get my hands on $10 in nickel rolls from my bank and even that was harder than it should have been since they were running low on their coin stocks. 3 of the 5 rolls were customer wrapped rolls (CWRs) so that was pretty promising. I dug into them and found a super shiny 1982 nickel that caught my attention. Then, I noticed the S mintmark upon closer inspection. This is officially my first proof coin that I've ever found coin roll hunting! It has some scratches so it's unlikely that I can get any real premium on it but free proof coins are never a bad thing. That makes me wonder how many proofs I may have been missing from edge-hunting the other denominations. Nickel roll hunting forces you to closely look at all of the obverses and reverses, so you have a better shot of noticing these cool rarities. Proofs are one of the few cases of NIFC nickels!

Here's an iPhone photo of my 1982 S Proof nickel that I found searching nickel rolls!

1982 S Nickel Proof Coin Found Coin Roll Hunting

How often do you guys find proof coins while coin roll hunting?

CRH 6/24/2013 : Dime Box Results in Dirty Silver!

Hey guys! As promised, I'm going to post the results of the $250 box of dimes that I posted about getting over the weekend. I had people guess how many silvers I'd find in the box and lo and behold, we have a winner, but the person was anonymous so we'll never know who they are.

I was thinking about doing a similar contest, but the winner who guesses the right number would win the silver. Not bad for you guys!

Ever wonder how many dimes are in a coin roll? The answer is 50 dimes, for a total of $5!

Back to the box! I only found 1 1957 silver dime and it was super dirty. In fact, I almost missed it while edge hunting. It was very well hidden in there. There's actual dirt down in the details of the coin which makes me think it was fully buried. Maybe it's a metal detecting find that the digger never noticed was silver and just mixed in with the clad. I've done my fair share of metal detecting and I have to admit that the coins do look a lot like this when they're pulled out of ground.

The back is pretty dirty so it's really hard to make out any details, but I don't think I can see a mint mark.

Silver coin number 24 for the year! I guess I know the 5 magic words for getting free silver from banks.... "Can I have a box?"

 CRH Find 6/23/2013: 1957 Dirty Silver Dime found in my $250 dime roll box!

Got a Box of Dimes -- Guess How Many Silvers I'll Find!

I'll make this post very quick today. I was able to pick up a $250 box of dimes at one of my local branches, so I thought it would be fun if you all tried to guess how many silver dimes I'll find when I search the 2500 coins in the box. I'm not going to be able to open it today, so you'll at least have a day to make your guesses before I publish the results!

Here's a tip: these rolls are likely machine wrapped, so they probably have a lower number of silvers in them compared to the customer wrapped (CWR) dime rolls.

Guess how many silver coins are in the box of dime rolls! Post in the comments below!

I'll try to post the results in the next few days!

Guess How Many Silver Dimes Are In This Dime Box!

What's the Best Bank for Coin Roll Hunting?

Today I opened a brand new bank account. For Coin Roll Hunting. Yes, that's right. Coin Roll Hunting. Otherwise, the features of the bank are pretty miserable. They're closed pretty much all of the times that I'm outside of work. Their fees for overdrawn accounts and other bank "services" are quite high. But, they don't charge for coin rolls and I never plan on using the account other than as the best answer to "Do you have an account with us?" when I ask for more coins than I reasonably have an excuse for.   ( A quick aside -- my personal favorite excuse is "I work a lot of flea markets / yard sales" or "This is for a 'Guess How Many Coins are in the Jar' fundraiser" )

That got me thinking, "What's the best bank for coin roll hunting?".

Since I live in an urban environment my answer may be a bit different than yours if you coin roll hunt in a small town or if you're looking for silver in the suburbs.

My answer is "The closest bank you can find (that doesn't charge fees for coins, of course!)."

Realistically speaking, most banks are going to be approximately equal for silver, errors, or interesting coin varieties, so the specific bank you select isn't too critical as far finds quality. Coin roll hunting is a numbers game and part of that is frequently churning through coins. That means going to the bank a lot. A whole lot. Closer banks are easier to make it to every day.

This bank is located a 3 minute walk from my workplace and I'm pretty sure I'm going to hit them up for many times my balance within the first few weeks. It's all gravy after that.

Do you have any bank accounts just to get you more banks to coin roll hunt?

Side note: I got over the $4,000 mark today. $26,000 to go in order to meet my $30,000 search goal!

CRH 6/17/2013 : Silver Dime and 2013 State Park Finds!

Things have been a little busy outside of the Big Game Coin Roll Hunting world so I forgot to update on my quarters that I searched last time. No worries since it wasn't too exciting. My best find was a decent looking America The Beautiful 2013 White Mountain State Park quarter but it's a very good strike for a randomly circulated coin. When I took my photo below, you can see what looks to be some gold highlights on it, but it's just some awesome lighting that happened to appear. I don't personally collect the state park quarters but this might be interesting to someone who does so I thought I'd share it with everyone.

2013 White Mountain State Park Quarter Found Searching Quarter Rolls

I was able to get a quick run over to one of my source banks to pick up some dimes and additional quarters. I haven't been able to really search through them all yet, but the $40 in dimes  I've searched through so far already gave up a 1964 silver dime! This one also has some pretty good toning, but there's some coin crud on Roosevelt's cheek that makes it look like someone punched him in the eye. I have a rule not to clean coins, so on it stays!

1964 Silver Dime with Black Eye Dirt, Found Coin Roll Hunting 6/17/2013

More free silver from the bank. Silver number 23 of the year!

Check back tomorrow for an update on the rest of the coins I have found searching through all of these coin rolls!

CRH 6/10/2013 : Single Silver Saves Sunday!

Yesterday, I picked up $100 in bank rolled dimes and finally found the time to search through them today. Searching for silver in coin rolls is always a fun time! I was able to find a very pretty 1964 silver dime in one of the rolls. That makes my 22nd silver find since April and my 21st silver dime found by searching coin rolls. Silver is still in circulation, people! You really can find silver in coin rolls if you try!

CRH 6/10/2013 1964 Silver Dime Found in a Coin Roll!

I was also able to get my hands on $250 in quarter rolls from my local source bank. Here's to hoping there's something good in them. I'd be awesome to find another silver quarter! I should be able to update tomorrow, so stay tuned!

$250 in quarter rolls. Think there's silver in one of them?

CRH 6/8/2013 : $100 Skunk Reversal

It's been a little while since I last posted, but it's only sort of my fault. I've been hitting up my source banks but they've all been out of coin (or so they claim) so when I get there I can't really pick up anything. That, combined with some non-coin roll hunting things I've been chasing, have been keeping the posts light.

Last time I searched I got skunked on $150 in dime rolls.

This morning I woke up intending to hit a few banks on my Saturday rounds just after they opened, including a branch that I don't frequent very often. If you're a somewhat avid reader of my blog (and you better be!) then you know that all of my hunts are done by carrying the coins. This branch is a bit farther than I'd like, but it's definitely doable if I keep my coins in a bag. I walked the 30 minutes over there and entered the branch. I noticed that there were no tellers at the large main desk and was sort of caught off guard. One of the bankers informed me that she could help me over at one of the smaller support desks. Unfortunately, this teller had given me some hard times with supply rolled coin in the past, so I pretty much just walked out the door.

 As I walked down the sidewalk I realized that it was foolish to assume that she'd be unable to help me, so I turned around, walked the 25 paces or so back to the bank and asked the teller if she help me with a box of dimes. "We don't have any of those," she replied. Then I asked here about lower quantities of dimes and she said she could give me $100. Apparently asking for a box of dimes doesn't fetch a counter offer when they are short.  I guess there are 2 lessons to learn here:

1.  Never assume a teller is going to give you a hard time about coin roll hunting, even if they've done so in the past. 
2. Just because you ask for a box of coin rolls doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for lower quantities of coin as well

All but one of those dime rolls turned out to be customer wrapped rolls (CWR). Well, good thing I asked her for those coins, because the $100 yielded 4 absolutely gorgeous silver dimes. That's a pretty good haul and puts my silver count at 21 silvers so far for the year! The years for the silver dimes are 1963D, 1964D, 1952, and a 1964!

1952, 1963D, 1964D, and 1964 Silver Dimes found Coin Roll Hunting 6/8/2013

I'm going to aim to hit another one of my source banks tomorrow since they have Sunday hours! I'm crossing my fingers to find more silver dimes in those coin rolls!