Why does anyone mark coins?

DaytonaRacer

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May 21, 2013
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First off, I'm a newb to this site. Found it by accident earier in the week and I think this site's awesome! I can't believe the money some of you regularly drop on boxes. Wish I could do the same.

I've been buying the occassional rolls of nickels and pennies here and there for several years and have had a decent amount of success picking up wheatbacks and pre-64 Jeffersons. Never seriously thought there was enough silver still in circulation to warrant searching higher denoms until I found this site.

So... since I don't have the extra cash to order a $500 Halves box (or 4, like some of you do) I've been checking banks locally seeing if any had any loose/rolled Halves on hand. Nobody has had any until I stopped at a brach of my Credit Union which I rarely go to.

Asked the teller for 2 rolls of dimes and 5 rolls of nickels. Then casually ask her if she has any Half Dollars. Turns out she's been sitting on $255 worth. A female customer came in recently alledging that they were her late father's collection and she wanted to cash them in. Needless to say I jumped at that and bought them all. The teller was more than happy to get rid of them... er, I mean sell them to me.

Turns out they were a dump and run. A few rolls were marked, no silver, and only a couple of Halves potentially worth holding onto because of condition. And far too many coins were marked.

Not the edges, not an occassional errant marker, but roll after roll I'd come across several coins that were marked across the obverse with black, red or green ink or paint - far too much for it to be a coincidence and in most cases it covered half the face. I can understand someone marking the rolls, but the coins themselves? Like I said, none of the edges were marked (which would have made alot more sense for CRH's), just the flats.

Can someone explain to me the "advantages" of marking the faces so blatantly?

Thanks!
- - - - - - - -
p.s. - as for the rest of my haul:

Jeffersons
Roll #1: 1943P and a completely worn out 1943S (The lettering was all but invisible. Good thing I own a loupe.)
Rolls #2-4: skunk
Roll #5: 1946, 1954, & 1960

Dimes
Roll #1 = 1982p (yeah it has the mint mark but in good condition it's still worth a little more than others)
Roll #2 = skunk
 

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Iamrussell

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Mar 12, 2013
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I just marked 2 boxes a couple weeks ago only to see how long it takes for them to get back to me- for me it took too long to mark em so I won't be mating any more- but again I just wanted to test it and see how long before I get my dumps- so far haven't seen them yet after 2 weeks
 

Bigheed

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Apr 11, 2011
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Marking coins is useless. So you find out it takes 3 weeks for them to get back to you and theres craploads of your marked coins, but there is also silver. No one would quit ordering. Volume is the key.

also just fyi pre-64 Jeffersons are not silver except the war nickels 1943-1945 that have the large mint mark on the back over Monticello.

HH,
Bigheed
 

uzzard

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Apr 22, 2012
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1942 nickels with a large P or S mint mark over monticello are also silver
 

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DaytonaRacer

DaytonaRacer

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maverick

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Sorry, guys. Didn't see it before I posted. Like I said, I'm a newb. :)

And, yeah, I know that the only silver Jeffersons are the War Nickels. I just like to collect older Jeffersons. If I find a WN it's a nice bonus for me.

No biggy, just pokin fun, if you look through some of the older posts ( use the search at top right) you'll see that some people get really wound up on the marking coin threads, most of us don't really post about it anymore because it's allways the same old fight, mark or not to mark, does it work or not, it's best to just try it and see if it helps you out or not, good luck. HH, Maverick.
 

kevin hoffman

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Sep 7, 2012
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Since he knows why now ,I have a story ! When I started working my first real job ,pumping gas [remember those days] the boss sent me out for lunch and his buddy who owned the local arcade was buying ,he gave me mostly quaters some painted red , I picked up the order and barely pulled into the shop when the cops arrived ! it turned out the red coins where markers for his arcade , if they turned up you found the thief !! I believe these old guys spent all day thinking of ways to mess with the young guys ,never did find the left hand monkey wrench ..hmmmm
 

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DaytonaRacer

DaytonaRacer

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May 21, 2013
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Since he knows why now ,I have a story ! When I started working my first real job ,pumping gas [remember those days] the boss sent me out for lunch and his buddy who owned the local arcade was buying ,he gave me mostly quaters some painted red , I picked up the order and barely pulled into the shop when the cops arrived ! it turned out the red coins where markers for his arcade , if they turned up you found the thief !! I believe these old guys spent all day thinking of ways to mess with the young guys ,never did find the left hand monkey wrench ..hmmmm

LOL!!!
 

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DaytonaRacer

DaytonaRacer

Sr. Member
May 21, 2013
486
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Fisher F22,
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No biggy, just pokin fun, if you look through some of the older posts ( use the search at top right) you'll see that some people get really wound up on the marking coin threads, most of us don't really post about it anymore because it's allways the same old fight, mark or not to mark, does it work or not, it's best to just try it and see if it helps you out or not, good luck. HH, Maverick.

No worries. Thanks, Mav!
 

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