Coin Roll Hunting

[Tiftaaft]

I realize this is a detecting site... but I just had to share...

I went to the bank today to take care of some personal business... on a whim, I asked the teller if she had any rolls of halves or dollars.  I like using big coins to treat the kids for acts of kindness, or for buying lemonade from the neighborhood lemonade stand... plus, maybe I would find a silver mixed in.  

My teller didn't have any, so she asked another teller down the line, who happened to have 3 rolls of halves in her till.

I bought all three.  

When I got back to work, I pulled them out of my pocket, and opened up one end of a roll for a sneak peak.  Wouldn't you know there was a 1964 Kennedy staring at me.  I slid the rest of the roll into my hand... then the next roll...  then the next.  

60 coins.  45 coins 1964 or older, 15 coins 1965-1969. 

I thought my day was going well when I found a silver rosie and a silver canadian quarter in a sidewalk strip at lunch... little did I know what was waiting for me at the bank.. 

I am still a little in shock. 

Thanks for allowing my distraction from the detecting forum for a moment. ? ~Tim

[Alluminati]

Holy smokes, nice score!

[Alluminati]

There is a couple hundred bucks worth of silver in those 1964 and older coins.

[GB_Amateur]

Glad you didn't spend that $30 on the two big lotteries (MegaMillions pays $1 billion; Powerball about half that this weekend).  ?

Rough conversion:  0.7 * silverspot*$face is silver content value for 90% silver.  So in your case:  0.7 * $14.67 * 0.5 for each 90%-er (45 of those) and 4/9 of that for the 40%-ers (15 of those).  45*$5.13 + 15*$2.28 = $265.  Actually the 0.7 should really be 0.68 (harder to do in your head...) so take off about 3% ==> $255.  On top of that, wear to the coins reduce the amount of silver so just call it a nice round $250 for your $30 investment.

I'd be excited!

[fredmason]

Simon, most or all of the world stopped making coins with silver around 1964....prior to that time 10c,25c, 50 c and dollars were silver ( about 90%). Now they are all junk coins and some are even iron. In the USA the Gov still wastes money making Zinc pennys that cost 1 and 1/2 cents to make...very stupid. All other coins are a copper alloy of some kind.

So, when you are detecting silver coins are good...but, your 1 and 2 dollar coins are very nice too- I wish we had them here.

[Tiftaaft]

9 hours ago, phrunt said:

Being from a foreign land I have no idea the significance of this and you seem very happy about it so would you mind explaining why it's so good??... are the older coins more valuable than their face value? 

I wonder why they had a bunch of old coins in the first place, someone brought them in and exchanged for notes? 

Sounds like you had a lucky day.

Thanks Simon,

In the US, the government used 90% silver composition for dimes, quarters, half dollars and dollars until 1964.  In 1965, dime and quarter coins were changed in composition to "clad" which is a mix of copper and nickel.  Silver dollars were issued until 1935, then were not produced for circulation again.  In 1971, the clad "Eisenhower" dollar was issued for circulation.  The exception to the post 1965 clad issues, are the Kennedy half dollars issued between 1965 and 1970, which are actually 40% silver.  So the silver content of these coins, at current silver market rates, makes the silver melt value somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 per 1964 and before coin, and $2 per coin on the others...  against a face value of $0.50.  As GBA calculated out.    Hope that helps ? Tim

[Tiftaaft]

10 minutes ago, fredmason said:

Simon, most or all of the world stopped making coins with silver around 1964....prior to that time 10c,25c, 50 c and dollars were silver ( about 90%). Now they are all junk coins and some are even iron. In the USA the Gov still wastes money making Zinc pennys that cost 1 and 1/2 cents to make...very stupid. All other coins are a copper alloy of some kind.

So, when you are detecting silver coins are good...but, your 1 and 2 dollar coins are very nice too- I wish we had them here.

Thanks Fred, our notes crossed paths ? Tim

[Dubious]

It's probably silly, but aside from the pecuniary value (which is usually just several dollars or so), I feel more of a historical connection with the person who lost a silver dime than I do with someone who lost a clad dime a few years later.  May be due to the fact that silver coins in the ground fifty years are often in pretty much the same shape as the day they were lost, while clad coins can degenerate significantly in just a few years (apparently because the slices of metal act as a weak battery).

[Alluminati]

Just now, Dubious said:

It's probably silly, but aside from the pecuniary value (which is usually just several dollars or so), I feel more of a historical connection with the person who lost a silver dime than I do with someone who lost a clad dime a few years later.  May be due to the fact that silver coins in the ground fifty years are often in pretty much the same shape as the day they were lost, while clad coins can degenerate significantly in just a few years (apparently because the slices of metal act as a weak battery).

It's not silly at all, that is a big part of detecting for most of us.

These detectors are like time machines. To be able to handle a coin or relic that was last handled by somebody decades or centuries ago is a very cool thing.

It's quite a profound thing that has changed me as a person over the years. You can't help but be more conservative and appreciative for the turmoil that others went through to get these countries where they are today.

Silver and Gold was the money, I don't go out of my way to look for fiat money. If I was in USA I might, because IMO your clad coins hit really hard. (Easy) We had pure nickle coins and now steel, neither of which are easy or particularly pleasant hunting for.

[GaryC/Oregon Coast]

I coin roll hunted about eight or nine years ago.  I was hunting through $3,000.00 a week in halves.  Found silver paid for many, many toys back then.  Then it caught on in my area and everything dried up.  Finding banks to take back $3,000.00 a week in rolled coin was a big pain.  I eventually made a deal with my local casino to take it all at once, if I played at the tables for at least one hour, which I was doing anyway at the time.  I was finding lots of S proof coins.  Kids would probably break open their proof sets and spend the coins.  You have me wanting to get back to it again.  Sure was easy money.   GaryC/Oregon Coast