Beginners Luck

[rickomatic]

Beginner's Luck

Beginner's luck is great, unless that's the only time you get lucky.
A couple months ago I read about searching for "junk" sterling silver at thrift shops and such. The very first thrift shop I went into, I found 2 sterling silver teaspoons mixed in with the junk flatware. I got them for $ .29 apiece. At the time they were worth around $13 each. Wow...I thought. This is like shooting fish in a barrel. Except. Since then I haven't found another piece in any of the dozens of thrift shops I've visited.
Fast forward to coin roll hunting. After reading here for a few weeks, I got up the courage to try it myself, if not just on a small scale. I needed to get some cash in the bank this past Friday, so while I was there I asked the young teller if they had any rolled coins. Not sure why, but I felt sheepish asking. The guy was great and asked how much I wanted. I just asked for a couple rolls of everything they might have. So, I got 2 rolls of halves, 2 quarters, 2 dimes and 2 pennies. I've started assembling some coin collection books just for fun, so this would be a fun way to spend an hour or two on a Friday evening. I found a few not key dates to put in my penny nickle and dime books. (remember I just started, so anything I found was going in the book). Then I hit the two half dollar rolls. Nothing special til almost done. Then it just popped out. A shiny 1964 Kennedy! Wow..that was easy!
So, what are the odds of finding a 90% in my very first 2 rolls ever. And, what is the chance of keeping that percentage of "finds" going? I'm thinking it is just another case of my "beginner's luck" bad luck.

 

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[obediah]

Re: Beginner's Luck

I once found a Penny in a customer Dime roll- not sure how he got it in there and boy was it hard to get out too.

 

[dave5710]

Re: Beginner's Luck

1. Go back to that bank and buy ALL of their halves.

2. If you want to collect coins, don't you want the finest example of each one? I wouldn't put a common coin in an album unless it was an extremely high quality example.

3. Rarer or scarce coins keep, and then compare like dates and mint marks, for detail.

4. Good luck

5. Keep us posted.

 

[timbobwey]

Re: Beginner's Luck

I wouldn't say there are really odds in coin roll hunting. You could go weeks without finding a single silver.. Or you could go weeks continuously finding silver. I once went over 2 months straight without getting skunked.. I was just finding maybe one or two silver halves every hunt, but it adds up. I do like to mix it up between dimes and halves. That's where I seem to have my luck, nickels are kind tough to find silver so I rarely hunt them. Pennies are fun to search every now and then. You really could get a sweet score in any roll of any type of coin though, so u just never know.

 

[rickomatic]

Re: Beginner's Luck

Well, I went back today and got the rest that they had. They only had 2 more, and there wasn't any silver in them.
But, this afternoon, I stopped by a store for a snack of iced tea and chips, and as I was walking out I saw a coin changer like Coinstar, called Monstercoin. I went over to it, and because I had read on here to check the discard chute, I did. Holy cow! Someone was sleepin at the switch. There was $5.84 cents in "rejects" in there. Not sure why it rejected out, because most was just regular change. But in amongst it were 2 canadian pennies (nothing special) an irish 1P, a canadian dime (nothing special), and two wheaties, a '44 and a 28.
So, the moral is guess is, just cause you strike out somewhere, keep lookin, you never know what'll pop up!