Just Started...Tough Hunting

[Dave Rishar]

A week and a half ago I found myself reading a bit in this subforum, and I thought of the half coffee can of change that I had in the bedroom. I thought, "Why not?" And that's how I found my first war nickel. I discussed it with the girlfriend and we went down to the nearest branch of my main bank and dropped a few hundred on various coins. The halves were all skunks (most of the wrappers were marked, but I checked anyway), the box of dimes was a skunk, and the box of pennies produced. A stop at another bank for four rolls of dimes produced a '50's Rosie. The hook was pretty much set at that point.

Since then, I've hit every bank in town and some of the banks in neighboring towns, cleaning them out of halves. ~$1500 later, I had a bunch of skunks. Fortunately, a federal credit union with two branches in the area (and which I'm now a member of) has coin counters, and all of those nasty skunks have been safely concentrated in two locations instead of being spread out all over the place. The other hunters in the area can thank me later. I'm just tired of finding their discards everywhere.

Two more boxes of dimes produced a few Canadian dimes and a 5 pence coin. Three boxes of pennies have given up nearly an entire box of coppers, 20 or so wheats, some Canadian stuff, one dime, and (my favorite) a 2 Eurocent coin. The coin counters are nearly always good for interesting discards, yielding everything from a Detroit transit token to a Filipino peso. The pennies produce, and I've made up my mind to get at least one box of them whenever I get a box of something else.

Unfortunately, none of the banks around here will order halves. Most straight up refuse to even try. My regular branch of my main bank tried to, but after fighting the computer for a few minutes, the manager admitted that she couldn't actually order them...they just weren't showing up. When I asked her where she got her halves from, she said that they hung on to halves that came in from customers but it wasn't a priority, and they were happier when there weren't any around. I got the same answer at two other branches.

I did get a 1967 Kennedy two days ago though, my first silver half. After dumping at one of those credit unions with the coin counter, I drove down the street to a branch of my main credit union (one town over) to deposit my filthy lucre and I asked about halves, since I hadn't been there in years. The teller said, "Oh, are you looking for silver?" I replied in the affirmative. "Well, I have one in my tray right here. Do you want to withdraw it?" She had four halves in her tray and one of them was a '67. Needless to say, I was pretty happy about that. I started this with the policy to always tell the tellers what I'm up to, and this wasn't the first time that it paid off. (I've had a few tell me who was dumping what at their branches, and at least one other become extremely helpful when I assured him that he wouldn't be seeing those halves again. We have some pretty shady CRHs around here apparently.)

Now that I've "sanitized" the local banks and cleared out all the discards, I'll stop by once or twice a week to see what turns up. But in the meantime, I'm looking for more silver. Do I expand my little sphere of influence out to more towns, or should I head out into the sticks and hope for a big score? Probably both.

My girlfriend and I agreed that this is a lot like pull tabs or other low stake gambling, except that if you get a losing ticket, you can turn it in for a full refund. I like that.

 

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[boristhespider88]

The teller said, "Oh, are you looking for silver?" I replied in the affirmative.

And that will get you cut off, stopped, or sniped by tellers real fast.

 

[Iamrussell]

And that will get you cut off, stopped, or sniped by tellers real fast.

Ya you might find 1 or 2 tellers that won't care but the majority of tellers and managers both vault and branch are not kind to silver hunters- I'd lay low if I were you- just say collector in general- errors different mints, varieties and such will keep more banks and branches open for you than plain silver hunting-

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just keep stacking, just keep stacking, stacking stacking stacking

 

[Dave Rishar]

I'll keep that in mind, although it doesn't make much sense to me - the teller already knew about silver and pointed the Kennedy out to me when I answered her truthfully. Granted, one incident does not make a trend, but if they specifically ask me if I'm looking for silver I'm not going to lie to them; it's disrespectful and if they mention it first, I'm not telling them anything that they don't already know. Generally I just tell them that I'm looking for rarities if silver isn't mentioned. I think that their main concern around here is that they don't want me bringing the skunks back to them.

It may be a regional thing. I'd say in two out of three cases, both tellers and managers tell me (generally unprovoked) that they absolutely hate halves, no one uses them, and they're happy to see them gone. They act as if I'm doing them a favor. Perhaps that's why they're so friendly. Not a single bank I've been to orders halves. They only get them from deposits. I don't see them cutting me off as, again, they're usually pleased to be rid of them. I do worry about bombing the coin counters at the dump banks but I only hit them once per week, which ought to be infrequent enough to keep me off their radar.

I hit a small town today with three banks and cleaned out two of them to the tune of $7. When asking for halves at the third bank, the manager asked me how many I wanted. "How much do you have?" I said. "How much do you need?" she repeated. I only had $100 in cash on me and I didn't want to buy them with a card (I assume they have to eat a service charge on that) so that's what I got, although I'll probably go back tomorrow with more cash to clean them out. All skunks, but at least none of the rolls were marked.

Besides silver obviously, halves from 2002 and later are worth keeping, right?

 

[Iamrussell]

Besides silver obviously, halves from 2002 and later are worth keeping, right?

Only really if you want to collect them- some have had decent chance selling them on craigslist or ebay but very few- there isn't a huge market for them- I collected two sets of them and now I only look for better ones than the ones I have-

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just keep stacking, just keep stacking, stacking stacking stacking

 

[Dave Rishar]

I don't want to collect them. Plans adjusted accordingly.

Halves and dimes aren't producing for me. I'm beginning to think that I may be better served by focusing on pennies and directing those profits into silver, as it's silver that I want. Thoughts? Copper for silver?

 

[fistfulladirt]

Roll hunting is a great hobby. If you are geared towards accumulating a stack of silver, your best bet would be to purchase it outright. Consider overtime at work, or even a second job. Others have even considered fur-trapping for additional income.