Hit a cool milestone last week...
Officially searched 1,000,000 half dollars ($500,000 worth) since I started hitting the halves hard in 2011.
Thought I'd share some interesting stats and do a little contest. It has been an interesting journey. I have found some cool stuff, and stacked a good amount of silver. I have never really been a stacker, per se, but more of a serious coin collector. I love Morgan dollars, key dates, and rare coins, and my goal at the onset was to find some silver that I could then sell and buy some nice coins for my collection. I think I have had some success in my efforts. Mostly by selling my finds, I have put together a nice partial PCGS-graded Registry set of Morgans (27 coins and counting), including most of the key/semi-key dates: 1893s, 1894, 1889cc, 1895s, 1879cc, 1885cc, 1881cc and quite a few others.
I have found lots of cool stuff along the way, besides the silver: 100s of proofs/nifcs (including a solid box of 2018d), magicians' coins, foreigns, errors/varieties. I found several 1974d doubled dies before I basically stopped date searching, hoping to focus more on volume. I managed to put together a complete set of Kennedy business strikes and proofs from 1964-2015S, including a 1964 proof, all the 40%ers: 70d, proofs from 1968s-70s, and 76s silver bu and proof dates (I didn't include the modern 90% silver proofs in the set - only found 2 of those).
Here are some stats from my first million:
Breakdown by coin types:
(1) Barber (1906) - part of a 3 solid-roll find from a Chase bank - 58 90s and 2 40s.
(57) Walkers - (found 27/65 dates in the series = 42%)
(100) Bens - (including 2 proof Bens - found 26/35 dates in the series = 74%)
(252) 90% Kens - (including 1 silver 1964 proof)
(2) 90% Modern Proof Kens
(2084) 40% Kens 1965-69
(5) 1970d 40%
(11) 1968s-70s 40% proofs
(6) 1976s 40% (mixed bu/proof)
Total Silver: about 460 ounces
Other Stats:
Total Boxes Searched: 883 ($441,500)
CWRs/loose/teller trays: $58,500
Best/worst skunk years: 2015 (34%), 2013 (64%)
Years - most/least searched: $198,719 - 2012, $28,780 - 2014
Best boxes: top 3
1. 88 silvers (87 40s, 1 90) - 13.2 oz
2. 53 silvers (53 40s) - 7.8 oz
3. 45 silvers (43 40s, 2 90s) - 7.1 oz
Boxes w/at least 1 oz silver: 62
Most 90s in a box: 9 (3 Walkers, 6 64s)
During that same period, I searched some pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters as well:
(11) silver quarters (all Washingtons)
(125) silver dimes (120 Rosies, 5 Mercs)
(90) war nickels
And now for THE CONTEST...
Whoever is the first to guess THE DATE/MINTMARK OF THE 1,000,000TH COIN will get a free 40% silver Ken mailed to them. Please only guess once until everyone who wants to has a chance to guess - if no one gets it, I will open up a second round of guessing.
Thanks for all your posts/finds/insights over the years - they have kept me motivated to keep searching. I love reading everyone's posts on here and wish you all well in your pursuits!
Officially searched 1,000,000 half dollars ($500,000 worth) since I started hitting the halves hard in 2011.
Thought I'd share some interesting stats and do a little contest. It has been an interesting journey. I have found some cool stuff, and stacked a good amount of silver. I have never really been a stacker, per se, but more of a serious coin collector. I love Morgan dollars, key dates, and rare coins, and my goal at the onset was to find some silver that I could then sell and buy some nice coins for my collection. I think I have had some success in my efforts. Mostly by selling my finds, I have put together a nice partial PCGS-graded Registry set of Morgans (27 coins and counting), including most of the key/semi-key dates: 1893s, 1894, 1889cc, 1895s, 1879cc, 1885cc, 1881cc and quite a few others.
I have found lots of cool stuff along the way, besides the silver: 100s of proofs/nifcs (including a solid box of 2018d), magicians' coins, foreigns, errors/varieties. I found several 1974d doubled dies before I basically stopped date searching, hoping to focus more on volume. I managed to put together a complete set of Kennedy business strikes and proofs from 1964-2015S, including a 1964 proof, all the 40%ers: 70d, proofs from 1968s-70s, and 76s silver bu and proof dates (I didn't include the modern 90% silver proofs in the set - only found 2 of those).
Here are some stats from my first million:
Breakdown by coin types:
(1) Barber (1906) - part of a 3 solid-roll find from a Chase bank - 58 90s and 2 40s.
(57) Walkers - (found 27/65 dates in the series = 42%)
(100) Bens - (including 2 proof Bens - found 26/35 dates in the series = 74%)
(252) 90% Kens - (including 1 silver 1964 proof)
(2) 90% Modern Proof Kens
(2084) 40% Kens 1965-69
(5) 1970d 40%
(11) 1968s-70s 40% proofs
(6) 1976s 40% (mixed bu/proof)
Total Silver: about 460 ounces
Other Stats:
Total Boxes Searched: 883 ($441,500)
CWRs/loose/teller trays: $58,500
Best/worst skunk years: 2015 (34%), 2013 (64%)
Years - most/least searched: $198,719 - 2012, $28,780 - 2014
Best boxes: top 3
1. 88 silvers (87 40s, 1 90) - 13.2 oz
2. 53 silvers (53 40s) - 7.8 oz
3. 45 silvers (43 40s, 2 90s) - 7.1 oz
Boxes w/at least 1 oz silver: 62
Most 90s in a box: 9 (3 Walkers, 6 64s)
During that same period, I searched some pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters as well:
(11) silver quarters (all Washingtons)
(125) silver dimes (120 Rosies, 5 Mercs)
(90) war nickels
And now for THE CONTEST...
Whoever is the first to guess THE DATE/MINTMARK OF THE 1,000,000TH COIN will get a free 40% silver Ken mailed to them. Please only guess once until everyone who wants to has a chance to guess - if no one gets it, I will open up a second round of guessing.
Thanks for all your posts/finds/insights over the years - they have kept me motivated to keep searching. I love reading everyone's posts on here and wish you all well in your pursuits!
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to be able to say you've looked at a million of something...
