Why do you hunt?

[Rosco53]

So, I'm sure I'm not the only one that gets asked this. Every time I'm at the bank someone asks how I got so much change, or what I do with it when I leave with bags. After explaining, probably 80% ask "why". So, just figured I'd ask you all: why do you do it? Whats the draw for you all?

Personally, it started off finding an incomplete Lincoln collection. Looked into it online, thought this was a neat idea and I figured an inexpensive way to pass the time too, since I was unemployed and one can only job search so much in a day. Then I pulled an 1888 Indian Head and cent from Panama my first time and I was hooked. Now, relatively sure I'm obsessed. I absolutely love finding old ones (100yo+ are just amazing to me) and any foreign ones (more so non-Canadian, though I enjoy the non-Elizabeths). Just to think of where all they've been, who's handled them, what they've been spent on, all the little facets of their journeys that have culminated in ending up in northern WI, love thinking about that. I'm even seriously considering laying off error hunting and just sticking to the old/foreign ones. The errors are neat, I like the cuds and clips and cracked ones, but beyond those, I'm not overly interested in doubled dies or the like... They're neat, don't get me wrong, but just not my thing. Also they justify me having my microscope too :-p. Silver isn't overly interesting to me besides War nickels (due mainly to the associated history), but will still dip into dimes and quarters just for the variety and off-chance of pulling a foreign coin, getting the new quarters, a proof, or maybe even a Merc. So yeah, what drives you all?

 

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[Dannycoco]

I was passed down my fathers collection. He was in WW2 so he had a bunch of foreign coins and a handful of Canadian silvers. I have always liked going thru coins even as a little kid. I started metal detecting a few years ago and living in NY it was a seasonal hobby. I started getting rolls of random coins from the bank. Then I learned about the coin machine and filling up the bags. The first bag of halves I filled and bought back had over 200 silvers. Hooked for life.

 

[TxAg]

I've been a hobby collector since I was a kid (thanks Dad) but did not CRH until 2 years ago when I got the bug to find silver half dollars. This after I inventoried my Dad's collection for my Mom after he died and realized he had a number of silver ones. There's nothing quite like finding silver treasure in a roll of halves! Besides building out Kennedy Dansco albums for my kids and now my grandkids (and stacking silver), I've also been working on filling albums for the different denominations from CRH. This weekend I finally found a Philly Yosemite for my ATB album and now only need 3 of the 2018 quarters to have an up-to-date P&D set. They will show up around here soon I'm sure. As for the Presidential Dollars, I only need the Philly Nixon. I lack just a couple of the Sacagawea NIFCs and one of the Susan B. Anthony's (that pesky 1981-D!). As for the Lincolns, Jeffersons, & Roosevelts - I will probably never get a complete P&D set from circulation as I don't CRH them to any large degree. But I have a nice partial set in every case and I high grade with better coins as I find them. I guess I hunt for the opportunity to find silver and the challenge of filling the remaining holes in the other albums. This coming Tuesday, I will give a short presentation to my local coin club on CRH. I will exclude any discussion about CRH for halves so I don't generate anymore competition in my town, lol! Oh, I recently added a blank page to my Dansco albums for errors, varieties, and the occasional proofs. I think they will make for a better show and tell when I show them to friends and family.

 

[BC1969]

Multiple reasons for myself.
The first being the thrill of discovery.
The second is our vacations.
I pay cash for everything. I go out of my way to get the maximum amount of coins in change.
Cashiers are like.. Do you have a penny so I don't have to count all this change.. Nope.
My wife and I go somewhere every year and the pocket change that I saved the previous year pays for it all.

 

[CJ9]

I started coin collecting pennies and nickels as a kid in the late 1970s and I used to buy rolls from the bank to fill the holes in the Whitman folder. Never looked for silver, other than getting the occasional silver nickel. Sometime in the mid-1990s, I started looking for halves and realized that I could find silver in rolls from the bank. From there I was hooked. Expanded to dimes when I figured out that they are small and that people dont realize that they are silver. Also realized that I was never going to get anything in quarters. When Commerce Bank (later TD) came into my area, I had a place to easily dump coins, so I expanded my volume. Although I have never been a box searcher. At some point I realized that those machines rejected silver, so I was able to find a lot in the return chute in those machines. I got a lot of silver out of there, including quarters, because at the time, the reject tube was not perfectly angled, so coins would get stuck there. I also realized in those that there was a magnet under the slot you inserted the coins, so I was able to find a ton of foreign as well as steel cents. TD was a literal silver mine for me until they shut them down - it also sharply curtailed my ability to dump. I hate having to re-roll, especially MWR.

I do it for the thrill of the hunt. I think it is neat that you can find silver in change, and/or coins from the 1920s and earlier. Between my time, gas, etc, I clearly don't do this to get rich - I probably lose money when you add it all up, but for me it is a hobby, and one that I enjoy. I also had my son into it (more when he was younger - until he found Fortnite), but even so, he got a war nickel in change from the CVS one day and brought it home and kept it because he knew what it was. So at least I taught him something.

 

[Dozer D]

"THE THRILL OF THE HUNT", is the main hobby driver. You just never know what's going to show up in the next box or bag, maybe something very very old. And in my years of collecting, (since the mid 60's), I have found some OLD COINS in the wild. Sure it would be a lot easier to just go to a LCS and buy them, but it's not the same. Ditto to everyone's previous comments. I enjoy it as a past-time hobby, usually by myself, but I'm willing to talk coins to anyone that has a FEW HOURS & HOURS.

 

[ILikeMoney]

The thrill of the hunt and everyone’s comments above. But also the history of any older coins that I’ve found. Finding an older coin that shows wear and tear (I also enjoy finding au coins lol), all the hands that the coin has passed through over the years... makes for a long interesting journey.

 

[port ewen ace]

feeding the Vampire, the New York utopian paradise

 

[Argentium]

I too started as a kid in Montana - getting a couple penny rolls , a nickel roll on occasion. I was a coin collector by the time I was 10, so CRH
was a natural part of that hobby . Like most of the other responders , I'm a thrill seeker ! My favorites are the Indian Head cent , any Silver dimes , and any 90 % half dollars . Happy Hunting
everybody !!

 

[Twitch]

Fame, fortune, prestige, women... the same reason everyone hunts?

plus I like finding things. Rocks, coins, fossils, arrowheads. I like the hunt. Very relaxing.

 

[GMan00001]

The main reason as others have said - The thrill of the hunt.

Unlike some hobbies, CRH is also a relatively inexpensive. Sure you need some cash to get started, but after that it is mainly just cycling through the same cash over and over. If you ever decide to stop collecting, you can always cash in what you found to get your original investment back, though usually the coins saved are worth more than face so you can sell the coins for a bit a profit instead. Depending on where you are located relative to your bank(s), your main expenses are gas, car wear and tear, and time. So long as you keep your gas costs to a minimum, you are basically just working for a very small wage in your free time if you want to view it as a job. If viewed as a hobby, it is all just fun time.

I started looking through my parent's change as a kid and graduated to asking my mom to buy $10 worth of rolls of cents in the mid 1980s when I was about 10. Around that time I had decided to try to find 1 roll of each date/mintmark as a goal. In the mid 1990s (in college) and afterward, I slowly graduated to doing the same for all other denominations with nickels first as I was doing a lot of casino hunting in video poker machines as I had a friend in college who loved to go to the local casino (about an hour away) and play nickel video poker all night. I switched from casino hunting to true CRHing from a bank in the mid 2000s.

At this point, I have searched millions of coins over the years of all denominations combined and purely from circulation/CRHing have pulled
* 2 complete Jefferson nickel sets (1938-1959) and a complete roll from most dates/mintmarks - missing 388 nickels from having a complete roll collection from 1838-1959.
* many complete Kennedy Half dollar collections (proofs excluded) and a complete roll of most dates/mintmarks
* almost a complete silver Roosevelt dime collection, missing 2 dimes - 1949-S, 1955 with complete rolls of some dates/mintmarks
* almost a complete wheat cent collection (including mintmark size variations), missing 12 mostly toughies: 1909-S, 1909-S VDB, 1910-S, 1911-S, 1912-S, 1913-D, 1914-D, 1915-S, 1922-D, 1926-S, 1931-S, 1932 with complete rolls dating back to 1918 and complete or mostly complete rolls from 1937 to 1958.
* almost a complete Franklin Half collection, missing 2 - 1955, 1958
* and about 30-50% of the following - Indian Head cents, V nickels, Buffalo nickels, Mercury dimes, silver Washington quarters
* and about 60% of the Walking Liberty half dollars.

I have always been/will be an urban treasure hunter and instead of CRH'ing over the past few years, I got back into buying/selling/trading sports cards (which was my other main hobby growing up). I'd like to do both CRHing and sports cards (as well as some metal detecting), but right now I literally have millions of cards to sort through as I seem to acquire collections faster than I could process them and I am trying to play catch up while still buying other collections. I am making a bit of a profit on what I am buying and selling now that I am not keeping everything to fill holes and I also have a business partner who I buy and sell with which has been fun, but it has kept my CRHing to a minimum. There are other things I would consider collecting, but at this point I am pretty much out of space as I have cards flowing out from almost everywhere in the house as it is.

 

[PetesPockets55]

It's a great way to while away some time, learn and maybe even make a little $. I enjoy the Lincoln series, errors and varieties. Pocket change was the only way to do it growing up. Fill up the folders with what ever crossed my path.

I just wish I had been able to save the Canadian silver from my paper route as a kid in Maine ('72-'75).
I asked my supervisor about the silver and he said he had 23 (?) carriers pay him with change each week. $20-$40 face in silver each week mixed in with the clad. If I remember correctly it was about $5 an ounce.

Shoulda.. Woulda... Coulda !

 

[tokameel]

When you hear that beep, while M.D.ing, or doing any kind of treasure hunting, it is like a slot machine. You know that it's usually small payout, but the few "Winners" keep me coming back.