Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980s or 1990s?

[clovis97]

Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

I am curious if any of the posters were CRH back in the 80's or 90's.

Back in the late 80's, a family friend of mine tried to tell me about the awesome finds that were out in the wild, and that you could find quite a bit of silver. "Silver will be worth a ton of money someday" he tried to tell me. Of course, I was too young and dumb to try it. I did ask several other people about silver and CRH, and everyone told me that "Silver will never be worth anything. The world is flooded with the stuff, and humans will never be able to consume all of it."

What was it like back then?

Was there a ton of silver to be found? Were there many dream boxes or dream finds?

Were you CRH for the coin finds, or for the silver?

What denominations did you search?

 

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[dpy52081]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

Personally, I did not CRH in the 80s or 90s, as I was too young. When I got into the game about 6 months ago, I started sharing finds with my Dad. He told me that he used to try and CRH from 1965 up until about 1985. Nothing major, just getting the occasional roll of quarters and dimes when he cashed his check (before the days of direct deposit). He told me that he stopped finding silver quarters 25 yrs ago so he gave up.

The process seems to be cyclical, there is still silver out there, and people will say the rise in prices coupled with the bad economy makes finding it harder. I, however, disagree. I have been doing this for 6 months and have found THOUSANDS of dollars in silver. I attribute my luck to a few factors:

1) The economy is down and not everyone knows about silver values, especially 40% halves. People are cashing in their old change jars or their parents or grandparent's stash.

2) I am fortunate enough to live in the Northeast, which seems to have a much higher success rate than many other parts of the country. I read posts from people all the time from Florida or the Southwest (California excluded) that have had skunk box streaks of 20 or more. In fact, I can honestly say that out of the dozens of half dollar boxes I have searched, my only skunks were the 2 boxes I got while I was on vacation in Orlando. They were fed wrapped rolls and not re-wraps or CWRs. Many people have theorized why my region has had more success, and these are the two theories that I think hold water:
- The population explosion in Florida and the Southwest started 10-20 years ago. People who moved there did not want to bring excess stuff, so those who moved and are moving there get rid of stuff before they move (change jars, coin collections etc). Since such a high % of the population that has relocated there has come from the NE, that puts us at an advantage. (If I am wrong, please let me know).

- There is a much higher population density in the NE than many other parts of the country. More people = more coins = more silver. (Once again, if I am wrong, please let me know).

I know this does not answer the question per se, but I hope it helps.

GL and HH

 

[kb4iqm]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

I've been collecting since the early 60's. I bought bags of Morgan silver dollars from the mint. Lots of silver was in circulation, it was the primary coinage of the day. I was looking for older coins back then, not the "new" silver that was plentiful. When silver began to fade from circulation, I set aside what I could afford to keep here and there. I wasn't going out buying rolls to hunt for silver, as it was still found in every day change for a long time after 1965.

I started a small sideline vending business back in the early 80's and culled all silver coinage collected from the machines. My main silver source was quarters since none of my vending machines accepted halves or dollars. Silver quartes and dimes were still pretty plentiful in vending. I sold lots of quarters to banks, arcades, and car washes.

When local vending regulations changed for the worst in the late 80's, I sold off most of my machines and closed down my vending business. The few machines I had kept, I put in storage, and still have them. When my silver dollar collections were pilfered back in 1991, it broke my coin collecting spirit for a long time. I pretty much stopped collecting for more than a decade. I still had the rest of the silver that I had collected and saved, I just stopped looking.

Wifey began easing me back into collecting by bringing home her silvers and wheaties finds from the cash registers she worked. I would buy change from store clerks that would save silver for me, but I really didn't get into buying and searching rolls of coins from banks until last year. My primary bank branch would not sell me boxes, only a few rolls here or there. The first boxes I bought were pennies, from another branch of the same bank. Then I got into nickels boxes, dimes boxes, quarters boxes, and an occasional roll of halves when I could find them. I would ask tellers for ikes and halves every time I went into a bank for any reason.

I really didn't get into searching boxes of halves until about a month ago, when the head teller at my primary bank finally ordered a box. I found a bank that already orders boxes of halves for another CRH'er that buys 2 boxes a month. I opened an account there and they upped their halves orders for me, so I've been going through 2 to 4 boxes a week since.

These days I find more silver in loose coins or rolls that are bank wrapped or customer wrapped. There's a lot of silver getting cashed in around here now. I like the boxes for filling my collection folders with clads, but the silver percentage is really low compared to the loose coins and locally wrapped rolls. I'm happy collecting more than silver now, but that's just me.

Bob

 

[fistfulladirt]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

I roll hunted as a teen in the late 70s, early 80s. 40% were not keepers back then, and I remember right before the big boom in price, finds were tough.

 

[MDRON]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

While I was going to college in the mid 70s I worked as a security guard. I would pick up
40 or 50 dollars of pennys to go through while I was at work. Found a lot of wheats and
quite a few indians. Never thought of looking for silver. 50 dollars of dimes would be only
10 rolls, didn't seem worth the effort. Live and learn.


Ron

 

[Stang1968]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

I started roll hunting halves in the mid to late 90's with my paycheck from my first two jobs. Silver was more plentiful, but I also was in a different geographic region than I am in now. At that time, I would buy up to $100 in halves. I put together 2 or 3 full rolls of 1964 halves, and pulled a few Bennies as well. Also found some 40%. I sold it all to a coin store when I was in college to pay for text books. Silver was pretty low at the time- somewhere between $5-6 an ounce. I think I got $20 for each roll of 64's, and I couldnt not even recall what i did with all those 40%ers.

 

[dave5710]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

I am sorta like MDRON. I have always asked for and kept silver halves, since I started my own bank accounts, in the mid 70's. Finding a silver dime or quarter in pocket change, was pretty rare, so i never thought to buy a bag or box. Another thing to consider back in those days, was the tellers were probably more likely to clean the silver out of what came into the bank. Less automation and more hands on, coin rolling was done, so those old gals probably found and hoarded alot.

 

[sitman]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

I started coin roll searching in the early 1970s when I was in junior high school. I started out with cents as that was all I could afford. Every roll had on average five wheat cents in it. I never found an Indian Head cent in a roll, although I remember my mother getting one in change in the mid-1970s. Some of you may remember that there was a cent shortage in the mid-1970s, and banks would give you a 5% bonus when you turned in your cents. Because of this, I would trade my cents for other cents at the bank. I would usually get some strange expressions (and of course offers to buy my cents), but one could not purchase large quantities of cents because of the shortage.

Only the large banks in the big cities had coin sorting and rolling machines, so I almost always got customer wrapped rolls. One time I was contacted by a small bank asking if I wanted to trade my rolled cents for a box of about $60 of loose cents that was brought in by an elderly lady. The bank just didn't have time to hand count and roll the cents. I immediately agreed to the deal, and if I remember correctly, I received a box that was about half wheat cents, including a lot of cents from 1909 through the 1920s.

I eventually added rolls of nickels, a roll of dimes, and a roll of quarters to my cent bag and exchanged them whenever I could at the bank. There were lots of silver and early Jefferson nickels in ciruclation, and I believe I found every date and mint mark except the 1938D, 1938S, and 1950D. I usually found one silver dime in a roll. Silver quarters were rarer, and I usually had to exchange three or four rolls before I found one. I remember finding only one Buffalo nickel, no dimes other than Roosevelts, and no quarters other than Washington. We lived near the Canadian border, so I found a lot of silver Canadian coins as Canadian coins freely circulated on a par with U.S. coins. Most people had no idea that there was silver in the Canadian coins longer than in the U.S. coins.

I searched rolls until I went to college in the late 1970s. After college, I did some searching, but the wheat cents had really dried up in circulation, as had the silver coins. I always looked at my change, but I stopped coin roll searching except for occasionally trying to keep up with the current issues until about one year ago when I stumbled upon this forum and decided to get back into searching rolls.

 

[clovis97]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

Thank you so much for the replies!

As a kid, I don't remember seeing very much silver. It seemed like every teller and cashier was a silver hound, and I remember those folks talking proudly of finding and keeping silver in the wild.

Over the years, I think I could count on one hand the different times that I've found silver in the wild from change that I've received. Sometimes I wonder if there has been more silver in the system in the past 10 years than the 30 years prior to that.

It seems that the two separate events of the Hunt brothers ordeal and then the price of silver falling to $4 an ounce has had major effects on the availability of finding silver in the wild.

Those two things would explain why so many of the older tellers seem to sometimes be the most fierce silver seekers, and why those much younger could care less about those coins. (There is a 70 year old teller in my town, and I swear she would fight her own husband for a single silver dime.)

Nonetheless, I am often stunned by how much silver is still out there.

Anyone else have an experience or story they would like to share?

 

[FormerTeller]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

Looks like the perfect thread for my debut post.

In the mid 80's right out of high school I worked as a teller in the coin and currency section of a large bank. This was not open to the public, but in the basement of the main building, where armored cars would drop off their deposits for us to process. I recall my cash drawer that I had to balance each night was around $100,000. If the deposit was bills, we'd count them up and process them like a normal teller. If it was bags of coins, we'd dump them into a counting machine, which would also feed them into the roller. In our spare time (seldom!) we could sort through the change in the top of the hopper and if we found something we liked we could swap it out. Back then I collected silver when I could find it, and sold it every few weeks for extra money. I kept most of the neat looking foreign coins too, as well as the mis-strikes.

Only worked there a few years, and pretty much forgot about it until I found this site. I had never previously considered buying coin rolls and going through them, but it makes sense. When I worked at the bank, I never looked through more than 1% of the deposits; even if I was into collecting then, there just wasn't any time to spend on non-work pursuits, and the security there was such that you couldn't go through the vaults before or after work. So I guess it's not surprising that silver keeps turning up.

 

[clovis97]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

Looks like the perfect thread for my debut post.

In the mid 80's right out of high school I worked as a teller in the coin and currency section of a large bank. This was not open to the public, but in the basement of the main building, where armored cars would drop off their deposits for us to process. I recall my cash drawer that I had to balance each night was around $100,000. If the deposit was bills, we'd count them up and process them like a normal teller. If it was bags of coins, we'd dump them into a counting machine, which would also feed them into the roller. In our spare time (seldom!) we could sort through the change in the top of the hopper and if we found something we liked we could swap it out. Back then I collected silver when I could find it, and sold it every few weeks for extra money. I kept most of the neat looking foreign coins too, as well as the mis-strikes.

Only worked there a few years, and pretty much forgot about it until I found this site. I had never previously considered buying coin rolls and going through them, but it makes sense. When I worked at the bank, I never looked through more than 1% of the deposits; even if I was into collecting then, there just wasn't any time to spend on non-work pursuits, and the security there was such that you couldn't go through the vaults before or after work. So I guess it's not surprising that silver keeps turning up.

Cool story!

So how were the finds? I'm guessing they were decent, if you were able to sell the finds every few weeks. Did you ever get anything huge?

Welcome to the forum, BTW!!!!!!

 

[FormerTeller]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

Yeah, the finds were pretty consistent; several silvers a day if you worked at it through your lunch break. Quarters were a lot more common then than they are now, and '64 Kennedy halves were pretty common. Not many Franklin halves though. I kept and still have all of the foreign coins I found. I realized recently many of them have a good amount of silver too. About the biggest things I found were a $500 bill (sliced the corner off of it, and still carry it around) and mis-strikes from new pennies. I sold most of those, but still have 4 or 5 left, including one with the date (1983). Not as shiny as they used to be, but still pretty cool looking.

 

[rileyboy]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

Nice post you have here. I'm 65 years old and used to search coin rolls back in the late 1950's when I was a kid. Every coin was silver back then, so you looked for the better dates. Also, every penny was a "wheatie". No one ever thought that silver would be worth so much money now! I remember searching rolls of dimes looking for the best dates. The roll usually contained half mercury dimes. I just threw back the 1940's. I had a nice collection back then, but had to spend it all to get my college degree. I know you may think I was nuts, but back then $5.00 was "a lot of money"! I also collected baseball cards and had full sets of the New York Giants, New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers. Tons of Mickey Mantle rookie cards etc. Had them in boxes in my attic. In 1975, when I was overseas on my job, my mother decided to clean up the attic and threw them all out. I hate to think what they would be worth today. Oh well! God rest her soul and I still love her. One final note. For those who CRH today and wonder what it was back in the 50's and 60's...remember! no one had $500 to buy a box of halves to search. In 1963 I lived on $10 a week in college. AND...that's no lie.
Hang in there everyone!
rileyboy here!

 

[clovis97]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

Thank you for the continued replies...it is so interesting to hear about your experiences!

FT~ I'd love to find a $500 bill in the wild!!!! (Or even my first silver Washington, LOL)

Riley~I'm glad that you chimed in. Did you CRH in the 70's? 80's? When did you get back into the hobby?

 

[rileyboy]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

I lived and worked in Southest Asia most of the 1970's and 80's, so I didn't do any coin roll hunting or collecting for almost 25 years. I only got back into coins when my children were born in 1989 and 1991 and decided to start a collection of the American Eagles for them. Got one each year and now have two complete sets from 1986 - 2011. Started getting back into the hobby and have been ever since. I'm retired now and have a lot of time on my hands. The coin hobby helps keep me busy.
rileyboy

 

[skelly9131]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

I can't help but wonder if 25 years from now there will be a post just like this about nickels.

 

[clovis97]

Re: Did anyone here CRH back in the 1980's or 1990's?

I can't help but wonder if 25 years from now there will be a post just like this about nickels.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit to see a thread like this on pennies, dimes or quarters.

"I got a box of quarters, and it was loaded with Washingtons from the 70's and 80's!!!!

"I scored over 100 copper pennies...all of them Lincoln Memorials from a single box of pennies!!!"

"Look at the clad Roosies I got off a bag at the bank. Here is a pic."

Hard to imagine, isn't it?