good ole days vs todays prices

47thelement

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Jan 8, 2009
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There is alot of talk on the forum lately about the good ole days of 50-75 coins per box averages when silver was around $3.50/oz.

As I write this post the ask price for silver is $20.44/oz and I'm still averaging 10-15 coins per box.

I will admit I was not hunting in days of $3.50/oz and have no idea of the competition at that time, but I'd like to hear the opinion of the forum, which was better. From a coin point of view and a long term investment it's obvious. However, if you snag coins and look for a quick turnover, it's not so clear.
 

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coinmojo

Bronze Member
Mar 18, 2008
2,484
6
Michigan
In my opinion you are doing fantastic if your finding 10-15 per box. At todays prices i'd quit my job and do 30 boxes a day..........

Mojo
 

FreedomUIC

Bronze Member
Jan 4, 2010
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466
NUNYA
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coinmojo said:
In my opinion you are doing fantastic if your finding 10-15 per box. At todays prices i'd quit my job and do 30 boxes a day..........

Mojo

What a nightmare that would be to dispose of. :laughing7:
 

65gt350

Hero Member
Mar 6, 2007
773
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California
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Tesoro Toltec 100
From what I remember when the price of silver was ~$6 it would take me searching 40 boxes to find $100 FV of 40%. Now it takes 64 boxes.

And yes there was competition back then too.

HH,
65GT350
 

SFBayArea

Bronze Member
Aug 28, 2009
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White's MXT
Piercesdad said:
There is alot of talk on the forum lately about the good ole days of 50-75 coins per box averages when silver was around $3.50/oz.

As I write this post the ask price for silver is $20.44/oz and I'm still averaging 10-15 coins per box.

I will admit I was not hunting in days of $3.50/oz and have no idea of the competition at that time, but I'd like to hear the opinion of the forum, which was better. From a coin point of view and a long term investment it's obvious. However, if you snag coins and look for a quick turnover, it's not so clear.

What era was this? When I started ten years ago, I'd get about 5 per box but I didn't get that many skunk boxes. When silver was like $4.00 an ounce the local shop told they'd pay 55 cents for 40%er. I remember I sold some to people a $10 roll for $13.50 and they turned around and sold them years later for $32.00 per roll on Ebay.
 

65gt350

Hero Member
Mar 6, 2007
773
10
California
Detector(s) used
Tesoro Toltec 100
I didn't keep per box records back then but I used to keep track of my yields. In other words if I got 10 or more coins out of a box it would be a 1% day. Back then I would have on average 4 1% or better days per month and now it is about 1 per month. It is just a matter of volume.

HH,
65GT350
 

DrDetector

Bronze Member
Jan 20, 2007
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Pittsburgh, PA
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I can tell you that when I started hunting halves in 1998, the competition was nearly nothing and it was very common to find full rolls of silver at teller stations. I didn't start doing boxes until around 2006, and at that point I was averaging about 2-3% silver and I would go 20-30 boxes in a row without a total skunk. Probably around 2003-2004 I unloaded a ton of my 40%s for somewhere in the $18-20 a roll range. At the time no one really expected silver to spike like this (although I'm sure there were some who did) but for me silver was relatively high and I sold. I enjoyed getting the higher volume of silver coins and having to dump less numbers of clad. Of course now if you find a 90% you basically just made $6 or $7...back then it was more like $1.50 or $2 profit.
 

silvercop

Silver Member
Dec 30, 2008
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VALLEY ALABAMA
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oh yea the good ol days.....my have things changed. speaking of the 40% they were considered trash when i started coinroll hunting back in my teens. dealers would not even make an offer around here on them. now the 1964's and below they would buy. i was a cashier at a grocery store (in the ghetto) while i was in high school. the neighborhood was (and still is) so bad that many high school girls refused to work there, or their parents would not let them. most of the cashiers were high school guys. man did i mop up there. had to be careful though because the store manager was a collector too and he wanted it all. that is where i learned the sound of silver. i could tell the minute it hit the drawer. got more silver dimes than i can remember. i was pulling several coins a day. got my first trade dollar there. as i think back to those days from time to time i would almost bet most of it was stolen. got several silver certs. and old red seal two dollar bills too.
been thinking about visiting the ol store sometime and talking to some of the people there to see if it is still rollling in. i bet it is. i say that because back last year when i was taking a weekly road trip somewhere it seemed that i always scored at the banks on the poor side of town no matter what town it was.
oh yea there was competition then too and it always will be but it seems you get more of it when the price is high. even 3 years ago there was competition. just go back and dig up the old threads and read. i think that there will always be new people come and go. many of the people that get into this do not realize how much work it really is and how much time it can consume. after they skunk out a few times they give up and move on. seen it countless times here in the past 3 years i have been following this board.
one other thing i wanted to mention. when i was in my 20's (i am 42 now) i dated a bank teller. she had tons of silver that she was pulling even back then. she said that several other tellers in the bank were doing it too, so that told me that every bank has at least one inside man or woman pulling the silver.
one bright note though----there still is tons of silver out there that is being sat on and socked away. just look at the mintage numbers of silver coins in the redbook. sooner or later some of it is bound to get cashed in or put through a coin machine. the times will get better again. they always do. you would think that much of the silver that we have found would have been sold and melted down back in the early 80's when silver hit 50.00 an ounce, but it wasn't
 

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