Coin roll hunting as a living

jrf30

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May 7, 2006
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Okay ... I rarely do this. In fact, I've NEVER done this before. EVER. But I call BS on this one. Major, large BS!!!! The numbers do not add up. Two examples. "He is already about 3/4 of the way to last year's profit of $110K, and that's because of the W quarters this year." He makes a big deal over how the W quarters pushed him up tremendously in 2019. IN fact, he sold a FEW HUNDRED of them already this year. So - if he sold 300 of them, and that is definitely a "few hundred" and he sold them for $15 each, which would be when they were selling near their top for each one, that would be ... $4,500. A nice profit. But I wouldn't say that thanks to $4,500 in a lot of work that it means he is way up towards his $110K of last year. If the $110K was a realistic number, the $4,500 from the W coins would be a little extra, but no big deal. Instead, I think I'll say he DID sell a few hundred of the W's. If so, he DID get an extra $4,500 in profit, and good for him. But if that was so amazing to him, then he did not make $110K the year before. Because $4,500 would not impress him much. Just be a nice bonus, but not so impressive. Make sense? The more money you make, the more it takes to be a change from that norm. Nope. A few hundred W's would not mean much to him with those numbers. Example #2. About the same spot in the video, when he was talking about some specifics. "If he had gotten into the 2009 nickels, he thinks he could have made $200K or $300K in 2009. Because they were selling very high." Yes, they were. For nickels and new ones. Because they were rare. But for him to say he could make $200K on them (The LOWER end), based entirely on if he was selling nickels, and if he got $20 per roll (Which is high, even for them. I WAS doing this in 2009, and still have rolls of 2009 nickels. And dimes. rolls of 2009 nickels were selling for about $15 per roll, at their PEAK) it means at $18 per roll profit, to make an additional $200K income, he would have to sell 11,200 ROLLS of nickels in 2009. Times 40 in a roll, so he would have to sell about 450,000 nickels to make that profit "if he was doing it in 2009". Problem is no one could GET 450,000 of the 2009 nickels I worked nickels that entire year. (plus other years). I worked them HARD, for that exact same reason. I never reached ONE full box of them. IN fact, I never even got a full ROLL of the P 2009 nickels, because I live out west. Got some D's, but not a full box. Doing it quite large amounts. Nope, his numbers don't add up. Remember - he's been working those amazing W quarters all year,. and got a few hundred. Maybe if he was lucky, he would get 500 of the 2009 Nickels if he worked it then? Add a few more, and call it 13 rolls. Times $18 profit per roll, and that adds $234 to his profit for the year. Not $200,000! Sorry, but the numbers don't add up.

One more. He does $20,000 of coins a week. I'm sure a lot of those are quarters this year, due to the W quarters. His dump banks would hate him after a while, as they can't deal with that volume ongoing, but that volume would not give him $110,000 in profit a year. I was doing $10,000 a week for a long time, and those numbers don't add up. Granted, if someone gets lucky, hey they can find one coin worth many thousands of dollars, and that could make their year add to that. ONCE. Not consistently, not for at least three years in a row ($110K, $100K, and now 3/4 of the way to $110K in the summer of 2019, thanks to the W quarters, which as I showed, would in reality give him maybe $234 in extra profit. Let's say four TIMES that, and $1K. Not something to move you up to $110K for the year though.

I know we are not supposed to say something is wrong on this site. But this one? Just says too much. And saying "just because you did not do it doesn't mean it can't be done" doesn't jive. The MATH of it says it isn't real. The numbers don't add up. Ask ANYONE on THIS board what they go through in a week, and how much they "profit" for the year. If someone does $5,000 per week, ask what they make and multiply it by 4 to get a guess on this guy he is talking about. Or whatever number. It's just not feasible, mathematically possible, unless they find that one major lucky find. Not annually though, that's for sure.

Now please don't ban me from the site. Been here too many years for that. :-)
 

smokeythecat

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In 2019 I went through about $20,000 in boxed quarters. I got less than 20, something like that, of the W's. Some were mint damaged and were worth squat. I got no decent error quarters and only 7 silver ones. It cost more in gas to get the boxes, which the banks were reluctant to give to me than what I got out of them.

I stopped crh'ing by April 2020. I probably won't start up again.
 

silveraddict

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Jan 9, 2016
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I had good years 2015,16,17,18
Searching around 5 or 6 boxes of halves a week.
Between boxes, teller trays & CWR
I was finding around 1100 silver halves each year.
Best ratio year was 2018
40% 717
90% 457
2019 was dismal
40% 528
90% 136
I did not even keep track in 2020
I haven't started yet this year
 

CJ9

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Factoring in time, gas, etc. its a money loser for me, regardless of what I find. I just like the thrill of the silver hunt and that is the only reason I do it.

This video is complete BS

If you think about $100,000 in revenue, and assuming silver is $25/oz - that would value each silver 90% half at about $9.00 (or 18x face). In order to come up with $100,000, you would need to have found 11,100 90% silver halves. If you think of a box of $500 (1,000 coins) that is 11 boxes of solid silver halves. Not in a snowball's chance in hell. And that is searching halves - where you have your best shot at finding silver - forget about quarters and dimes.

And the above post from silveraddict is proof. In his best year, at 5-6 boxes a week (250-300 a year) - searched a lot of coins and he pulled 1,100 coins - not even close to $100,000 worth (and of which most of his finds were 40% - so you would need many more to get to $100,000).
 

Xraywolf

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Should have subtitled this thread
"LOL"
 

smokeythecat

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Not necessarily this guy, but the BEST LIARS in the WORLD post finds on youtube! One of these days I should photograph a real dig versus a fake one. Just to let you see the difference. Right now the ground is frozen solid.
 

enamel7

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Apr 16, 2005
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You said nothing wrong. Negative post only apply to members of tnet.
 

Armstrong

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It would have to be a lot of key dates to get close. I'd believe maybe 10k if that's all I did for a year. What happens when the W quarters aren't found anymore. The odds just aren't there to spend much time on it.
 

DeepseekerADS

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I'll ask perhaps a dumb question here. I haven't paid any attention to coin roll hunting. Got some years ago when I first heard about it and got zilch.

What the heck are "W" quarters?
 

Scott (Mich)

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I'll ask perhaps a dumb question here. I haven't paid any attention to coin roll hunting. Got some years ago when I first heard about it and got zilch.

What the heck are "W" quarters?

The US mint decided to issue some quarters struck at West Point into circulation. You cannot buy these from the mint like their other products, they are only found mixed in with the new coins from the other mints. If I remember correctly, the mintages are maybe around two million of each type. So West Point would ship them off to Denver or Philly (or where ever) and they would be pre-mingled in with their quarters, before going out to the banks. So if you get a box from Philly, you may have a few W mint quarters, same with a new Denver box. I have not gotten a W quater myself yet, mainly to not seeing many quarters at all due to the lockdowns.
 

Twitch

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Feb 1, 2010
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I 'make' more that $100k just about every year CRH'ing. Generally I find like $99,850 worth of clad and like $150 worth of silver, so using idiotic math I easily find $100k worth of coins every year.
 

GMan00001

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If you search the archives of TNet, there were entries about this years ago. By the time you subtract out gas and other expenses, your hourly wage is either negative or barely positive and that was when silver was a lot more prevalent than it is today.
 

maine_Jim

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Funny video - I agree on the bs call. When I was a hardcore CRH 2008 - 2014 I was doing the 10k to 15k a week. I knew it was a hobby that had occasional good finds. I sold a bunch of 2009 cents as full boxes that I think went for $200 or so each so there are other ways to make a few extra bucks besides silver but they are pretty rare. I made a few thousand there. I hit a few monster boxes. I think the best was 175 90% coins. If you averaged it all out though - which I did for quite a while I was getting 3.4 silver coins per $500 of halves in the beginning but it soon went down to 2 per box. That is a long way from $100k! I found more just hitting up banks. I even had a banner here back in the day from a CRH find. No one who has done this would ever believe that video. It will get a few more people to try CRH and quickly get disappointed and quit. Perhaps he makes a few pennies from people clicking on it and watching.

Maine_Jim
 

Xraywolf

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Funny video - I agree on the bs call. When I was a hardcore CRH 2008 - 2014 I was doing the 10k to 15k a week. I knew it was a hobby that had occasional good finds. I sold a bunch of 2009 cents as full boxes that I think went for $200 or so each so there are other ways to make a few extra bucks besides silver but they are pretty rare. I made a few thousand there. I hit a few monster boxes. I think the best was 175 90% coins. If you averaged it all out though - which I did for quite a while I was getting 3.4 silver coins per $500 of halves in the beginning but it soon went down to 2 per box. That is a long way from $100k! I found more just hitting up banks. I even had a banner here back in the day from a CRH find. No one who has done this would ever believe that video. It will get a few more people to try CRH and quickly get disappointed and quit. Perhaps he makes a few pennies from people clicking on it and watching.

Maine_Jim

I think you nailed it [never CRH'ed] but I can imagine the attraction for those who do - Thrill of the chase.
To me, thats about the same as metal detecting, if I did it only to try to try to get rich and didn't actually enjoy it, I probably wouldn't do it. I set my expectations accordingly, know that I'll find 100+ pulltabs and bottecaps before I find a gold ring, and go out and have fun trying.
 

Owassokie

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So is it possible this is true...yes, I suppose. The advice was all very sound and I feel it was truly from a CRHers perspective. But that's a lot of money. The truth is, IF (big if) they netted this kind of money, the husband/wife duo was just as skilled in selling, networking, and numismatics as they are at CRHing. Most people that truly have a gift for selling/networking aren't going to put that kind of time/effort into something when they could be using those skills to make even more money. If the story is true, there is still a misnomer here because your average CRHer will not be able to sell at this level and likely won't have the relationships/banks/location available to CRH in mass quantities. I'd love to hear some of the hard statistics about how much of each denomination and even some of the stats showing what they sold. The reason I give this a chance of being true is because you can sell lots of relatively common coins if you can find the buyers. But again, lots of time involved here and a level of skill/effort that many would not be able to meet.
 

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