Half Dollar Drought

[blueberra]

I'm a relative newcomer to the world of CRH (started July, 2018) and have read several posts over the past two years about legendary skunk streaks. So I know about and have experienced dry spells.

With COVID-19, the world of CRH has been turned upside down. For example, my bank did not start ordering my weekly half dollar box until June 10.

But something seems different and I don't know if it's due to many fewer boxes of halves being searched than in pre-COVID days or if the silver is finally drying up.

It seems like there used to be a post or two every week chronicling good finds and, for me, it was like a fix to keep on searching even if I was on a bad streak.

But there have been very few success stories posted in the past couple of months.

In my case, I have searched 19 boxes in 2020 (11 since June 10) and have found ZERO 90% silver halves and only four 40% silver halves.

Compare that figure to 2019 : 47 boxes / 37 @ 90% / 110 @ 40%. 2018 : 25 boxes / 6 @ 90% / 24 @ 40%

Maybe I just had a good year in 2019, but I kind of thought that with banks open sporadically that the supply of boxes of halves would be dwindling because fewer people were dumping -- my bank did not open the coin counting machines until late July, six weeks or so after I started getting new boxes. I found another bank that I could use to dump my halves.

There would be no reason for Loomis to utilize first-in, first-out inventory measures, so I figured that the boxes at the "back of the shelf" would stay there for a long, long time and the stuff in the front would be adds and subtracts from CRH dumps along with some third-party (silver) surprises. We've all seen marked coins.

Does anyone know the inner dealings of Loomis / Brinks / Dunbar? It would sure be a treat to get a box that has been collecting dust for 20 years.

 

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[Twitch]

2019 was a crazy good year for you.

CRH finds posts are down because hunting And hunters arE down. With lobbies being closed and folks worried about the ‘rona, way less people out hunting and probably less people turning in collections. 4 40%ers in 19 boxes barely registers as a slow stretch let alone a skunk streak.

 

[Roll Hunting Family]

I don't count how many boxes I search, but I save my CRH finds in separate rolls. During 2020 (dating back to March, when I started this hobby), I've got somewhere in the vicinity of 25 90%ers, and 85 40%-ers. If I had to guess, I'd say I've searched 30 boxes or so.

As with most everyone, the majority of my total finds came from a small number of rich scores. I had one box that produced 25 silvers (10@90%, 15@40%), and three customer wrapped rolls that produced about 20 silvers (I forget the numbers, but mostly 40%ers).

But still, I haven't had really horribly lengthy skunk streaks. Usually, "dry" has meant one silver in three boxes.

As for the inner dealings of Brinks/Loomis/Dunbar, I can tell you that I don't think they have boxes of coins sitting in cold storage. Several times, when I've tried to order two boxes of halves from Wells Fargo, the branch agreed to place the order, but when delivery day arrived, they told me "We got a note from the federal reserve that says we couldn't have two boxes, they're limiting us to just one box." That may be some kind of miscommunication or misunderstanding on the part of the bank employees, because I have a different bank that has no problem getting me 4 boxes a week right now... But it's something I've been told. YMMV.

 

[enamel7]

Silver is replenished when people dump it at the bank. People haven't been able to dump, so no silver added.

 

[fistfulladirt]

‘There’s a coin shortage!’

 

[Roll Hunting Family]

I searched two boxes last night... Found one lonely 40%-er.

 

[Stacker62]

Just hang in there. I just came off a really long skunk streak myself. I went March until the end of June with pretty much nothing. It Just started picking up again in July. In addition to Covid there is also the national coin shortage still going on. It will pass. Keep looking and eventually you will hit it again. Good Luck.

 

[Tommybuckets]

I am out of the game since covid but had my best success from cwrs. Sometimes the tellers would keep the 90% and give me the 40%. I had two dream boxes but they were from the same massive collection dump. Some box types were better than others for me. I'd get the Brinks cubes, the loomis long boxes. The cubes never did much for me. I was downstream of crh dumpers on my cubes. I think not much is coming in. What comes in from Coinstar is pre filtered for 90% since the machine rejects most of them and some of the 40% . I would like to be CRHing but its not feasible rt now. Dumping was already a pain now it looks impossible.

 

[fistfulladirt]

I check Coinstar. Free money.

 

[lovewiibrew]

2019 was a crazy good year for you.

CRH finds posts are down because hunting And hunters arE down. With lobbies being closed and folks worried about the ‘rona, way less people out hunting and probably less people turning in collections. 4 40%ers in 19 boxes barely registers as a slow stretch let alone a skunk streak.

That's not my experience here anyway. Banks are actually happy when I turn in half dollars, as SO MANY people ask for them. Varies by location, I guess. I imagine the recent rise in silver price is to blame for this.