9/7/2014: Small Search Yields Silver!

Since it's the kickoff of football season today (see what I did there?), I made a quick stop at my local bank to pick up some coins while I watched the games. On a Sunday! Yes, I just happen to live in a neighborhood with a large population that require banks to be open on Sundays for religious reasons. Having an extra day to get coins is always nice! But, we digress...

I originally wanted to get a box, but the bank only had $50 that they could spare. No problem! I took them and searched them up and found a sweet looking 1960 silver dime!

1960 silver Dime

A couple of days ago I was searching through some cent rolls and came across this guy between the wheat cents that I kept. I'm not sure if it's an error or post mint damage, but then again I only claim to be a coin roll hunter, not a coin expert! That's what social networks are for. Leave your comments below!

8/31/2014: Still hitting the Silver!

As you have probably noticed, I haven't been doing  as great of a job of keeping this blog updated in the past few months. I haven't really been coin roll hunting very much in 2014 so the finds haven't really been blog-worthy.  We're also nowhere near my previous goals of searching >$30,000 a year in coins and figured that the readers wouldn't be interested in my tiny $150 a week searches that I've been doing. That's Small Game Coin Roll Hunting. This is Big Game Coin Roll Hunting and those small searches belong on someone else's blog!

But even searching a few rolls a week can yield some pretty cool finds, especially my favorites: silver dimes!  I've found quite a few silver mercury dimes recently, but here are my most recent Roosevelt silver dime finds that I pulled from some customer-wrapped rolls.

As of this post, the value of a silver dime is a lowly $1.40.

1964 and 1959 Silver Dimes found Coin Roll Hunting

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!

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

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 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!

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!

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!

CRH 6/2/2013 : Skunked on Dimes!

I planned to hit quite a few banks yesterday, including a bunch of banks that I drive past every day but I'm not a customer for. But as I looked up all of their hours I realized that only 2 of those banks actually had Saturday hours at the branches I was heading toward. Oh well, 2 banks was all I could hit and those were ones that I'm already a member of.

I was able to get my hands on $200 in dimes between the two banks and I was happy since most of them were customer wrapped rolls (CWR). The CWRs tend to be a bit better for me than the bank rolled ones, but these were total skunk. Oh well, they wouldn't call it hunting if it was always easy. Time to re-roll and return. Hopefully my next haul of coin rolls will be a bit better!