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!