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

1/16/2014: Laundromat Find!

This really isn't a coin roll hunting find, but when I was doing my laundry at the local laundromat, a shiny little fellow popped out of the quarter change machine. This 1964 silver quarter paid for my laundry!

1964 silver quarter

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 8/13/2013 : 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!

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 6/24/2013 : 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!

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 5/25/2013 : Silver Continues!

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day so I decided to get out and hit a few banks for some coin rolls. I walk to all of my banks, so I tried to hit the path that would allow me to pick up and dump coins at various banks, with my ultimate destination being the single branch in my area that has an automatic coin counting machine. We coin roll hunters love the automatic coin counting machines!

 I don't remember all of the details of my various stops and searches, but I probably hunted something along the lines of $325 in coins, mostly dimes and quarters, because you never know when you might get lucky. None of the banks had any half dollars so that wasn't really an option.

 In all of my searching of the coin rolls, I was only able to find a single silver dime. That's a bit disappointing, but it's really my only "real" search in the last 2 weeks, so it's great to get the silver flowing yet again and finding silver in coin rolls is always tons of fun. The 1954 silver dime is neatly toned, but has a slight tinge of the yellow toning which I don't like as much as the black toning.

You can still find silver in those coin rolls, so keep looking and don't give up!

1954 Silver Dime found Coin Roll Hunting 5/25/2013

CRH 5/7/2013 : Steady Silver!

Today was a pretty straightforward search with some straightforward finds. I was able to search $200 of customer wrapped dime rolls and was lucky enough to grab 2 silvers for the silver stack! One looks to have a number of dings on the outer rim but the value is all in the silver anyway.

2 Silver Dimes Found While Coin Roll Hunting 5/7/2013

CRH 4/23/2013 : More Dimes & a Silver Lady!

I was finally able to grab a handful of new dime rolls to search from my of my more successful source banks. I can't really share the details in case I have any local readers, but it's a location that's part of one of the major chains. I'm not a customer there since their account offerings are total trash, but the coins are nice so there's that.

I was only able to carry $230 in dimes and $10 in pennies back from the bank. It turns out that at least some of my penny rolls are filled with freshly minted 2013 coins, so these are likely going to be handed right to my dump bank without even getting cracked. Right now I've only opened 4 penny rolls and found a single 1953D wheat penny so far.

I did have a chance to get through all of the dime rolls, though. Even though I didn't exactly find a lot of silver coins in this haul, I did get an absolutely gorgeous 1942 silver mercury dime! I don't have a loupe, but I squinted extra, extra hard and sadly it's not a 1941/1942 overdate. I'll try to see if I can get a pic with my DSLR camera sometime, but you'll just have to accept my smartphone camera pic for now. I also got a single 1964 Roosevelt silver dime. That brings my silver count since 4/10 to 13 silver coins!

Silvers and Wheat Coin Roll Hunting Finds 4/23/2013

CRH 4/21/2013 : Mixed Hunt nabs 1 Silver!

Hoping to get some better luck than I had in the last trip, I grabbed like $200 in coins from my source bank. I really wanted to get penny rolls but it turned out that they didn't have any that they could share with me. They did have some rolls of half dollars, so I eagerly snapped those up.  Here's a peek at what I was able to get hold of in order to search. There's $135 in dimes, $40 in halves and $20 in quarters.

Going to Coin Roll Hunt $195 in Coins! 4/21/2013

All in all, the quarters and the halves were pretty skunky. I don't even think I got any "Not Intended for Circulation (NIFC)" halves. Mediocre results are pretty typical for both quarters and half dollar rolls -- it's not incredibly common to pull silvers, but if you're lucky enough to do so, the return is pretty high.

This source bank was the bank that gave me the Cointainer rolls with the extra dime in them. That trend apparently continued, with at least a few of the paper rolls containing some extra dimes. This time, I was also lucky enough to grab a nice 1948 90% Silver Roosevelt as well! That pretty much made this small search worth it.That brings my silver count since 4/10 to 11 silvers, including a 90% silver half teller find. Not too shabby! I've searched over $1,300 since then. Steadily working toward my goal of $30,000 searched by year end.

1948 Silver Roosevelt Dime Coin Roll Hunting Find 4/21/2013