Question for people who check half dollar rolls by weight

alanlee87

Greenie
Feb 4, 2011
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So I have been Rim checking and date checking and I want to speed up the process so that maybe I can look through more boxes in a week.

90% - 12.5g
40% - 11.5g
Clad - 11.34

So a full roll of Clad half dollars would weight 226.8g, so anything above that would mean that there is either: some silver or an extra coin.

(I've never done it, these are just numbers from Wikipedia)

My question is.......

If you check by weight... at what threshold do you usually check?


ALSO

Would it be a good idea to weight check dimes and quarters? Anyone do it?


Thanks!

HH,

Alan
 

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CardsNCoins

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Nov 17, 2010
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There are no automatics, so you have to open every roll. My experience has been that rolls weighing 224.9 and less never have any silver in them. I have gotten 40%ers in rolls that weighed as little as 225.0, but that was only once or twice. For me, most 40%ers occur in rolls that weigh 225.4 to 225.9 and when I see 226 and up that usually means there is a 90%er in that roll. Conversely I have gotten rolls that weighed above 226 and there were all clad coins inside, but for he most part 226 and up means a 90%er. Obviously these are just my experiences and your mileage may vary.

HH

Nick
 

cdickrun64

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Nov 12, 2009
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I do not open any rolls that weigh 225.2 or lower. That saves me about 40% of the rolls that i dont have to open, while still collecting more than 90% of silvers. I have had rolls weigh 226.0 that did not contain silver, which is discouraging.
 

SFBayArea

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Aug 28, 2009
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cdickrun64 said:
I do not open any rolls that weigh 225.2 or lower. That saves me about 40% of the rolls that i dont have to open, while still collecting more than 90% of silvers. I have had rolls weigh 226.0 that did not contain silver, which is discouraging.

You're missing out.. I've found 40%ers in 225.1 to 225.2 grams. Only once did I find one 40%er in a roll that weighed 225.0 grams and that roll had a clad with a hole in it along with the keeper. Yet, I've also had a roll that weighed 226.3 grams and it turned out to be a skunk. If you get 226.4 or higher, you know for sure you'll get a 90%er or two 40%ers.

One has to also take in consideration of the whole box. If the box had no rolls over 226.0 grams then that is not a good box so you may not need to check rolls over 225.2 grams because the chances are not very good. However if you had a lot of EOR keepers showing and a bunch of the rolls weigh over 226.0 grams, I would check all rolls weight starting from 225.0 grams. Use your descretion wisely.
 

capy325

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Apr 9, 2008
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I for one don't understand why you'd weigh them in the first place... It really doesn't take that long to open all the rolls and make sure! Need to start a new board for CRW (coin roll weighing). :tongue3:
 

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alanlee87

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Feb 4, 2011
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It takes me about an hour to look through one box. If I weigh all of them and only open ones that weigh a certain weight, I assume that I can look through boxes faster.
 

CHAINCHOMP

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Mar 27, 2010
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alanlee87 said:
It takes me about an hour to look through one box. If I weigh all of them and only open ones that weigh a certain weight, I assume that I can look through boxes faster.
see, but this is where your math is wrong.....it takes u an hour to date check a box by hand...but it should only take a few minutes to rim check a box by hand...so, it is not very accurate to compare weighing to date checking...so, if your not interested in finding key dates, errors, proofs, NIFC, commoms and the like, y r u date checking? because if you weigh rolls, u sure as hell arent gonna find any of those things...so, then you should just rim search...hope this helps...keep it up and hh!
 

gold fish

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So this is why all those worn walkers stay in circulation for me. Thank you.
 

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treeslayer

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Apr 9, 2010
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I check each coin. I crack open the rolls and put them on the table top. I give them a quick look and throw them in a bucket. I can do the box in about 15 to 20 minuts. Iam not trying to speed hunt here, i do 4 to 9 boxes a week and i enjoy the hunting. I think if you are trying to go through the boxes with out looking at the coins you are takeing the fun out of it. HH
 

Diggin-N-Dumps

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Wow..I must be the only person that enjoys looking thru them..I wouldnt ever weigh them to tell if there were silver in there because;

1. Ive found Many Foreign coins in the rolls
2. Ive had a roll that was short a coin (and could have a silver in there still)
3. How else am I going to get my hands completly black just sitting on my couch :laughing9:

But really..Ive been pretty lucky lately and havent had to buy 100's of boxes of coinage a week. And when I do get a skunk i dont get upset..I mean it sucks..but it is what it is..its a game to me..and ive learned the more I buy during the week..the more let down i seem to have..I have been spacing my buying coins out and have been very happy with the results..but again thats me...I read almost everyones posts on here and noticed the one thing that we have in common is the fact that we all produced different results..Some people need to go thru 10 boxes to find what others go thru 2 boxes :dontknow:

Its all LUCK :thumbsup:
 

47thelement

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Jan 8, 2009
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It's a rollercoaster folks.

Find a systems that works for you and stick with it. I mean stick with it through the highs and lows.

most of all please don't try and pay your mortgage by playing this game.
 

phrostie

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Dec 3, 2008
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Man there are a lot of novice hunters now! Ya'll are lazy!

I've failed to see one person mention anything about rolls with 19 coins or rolls with 21 coins. Although most the time you can tell by looking at them, how do you take those into account?

Also, I've had a box in the past that has nearly all 98s or 95s, the super skinny halves. I bet that would be an outlier for your statistics as well.

~phrostie
 

legend76

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May 17, 2010
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phrostie said:
Man there are a lot of novice hunters now! Ya'll are lazy!

I've failed to see one person mention anything about rolls with 19 coins or rolls with 21 coins. Although most the time you can tell by looking at them, how do you take those into account?

Also, I've had a box in the past that has nearly all 98s or 95s, the super skinny halves. I bet that would be an outlier for your statistics as well.

~phrostie
Yeah, what's up with the skinny halves? Do they still weigh 11.34g?
 

AGCoinHunter

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How else am I going to get my hands completely black just sitting on my couch


Some black shoe polish will do about the same thing. 8)
 

ArkieBassMan

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Another thing that hasn't been taken into consideration is the accuracy of the scales. Even a scale that was 99% accurate would/could be off as much as 2.25g on a roll that "weighs" 225g. I used to do a lot of tournament bass fishing where every ounce of weight was important. It is nearly (if not completely) impossible to find a set of scales that never "lie". Fish that were close always got double checked with one of those balance type devices where you clip a fish at each end and the heaviest fish pulls its end of the balance down. At one time I have owned or used practically every brand and type of fish weighing scale on the market, and I never found or used one that was 100% accurate every time. In fact, some were terrible...even some pretty high dollar ones. You could weigh the same fish 5 times and get 5 slightly different weights.

My CRH finds aren't good enough that I can afford to miss ANY silver. I am not going to trust the accuracy of a scale, plus the discrepancies that worn, holed, missing/extra, and abnormally thick/thin coins could cause, to find silver. You are going to miss silver if you only weigh rolls. Plus, I don't see how it really could save much time. I think I could rim and sound check a roll in about the same amount of time that I could weigh it.
 

mrbelvetron

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I was reading this the other day before I got my box and thought about it after I'd done a few rolls. Got our new scales (and I have tested them on known weight item so they are about as accurate as you can get with buying some super high-priced scale) out and thought I'd give it a try for fun.

11 of the remaining rolls weight in at exactly 225g. The other 23 weighed 226g. No silver in the 225g rolls but two 40%'s in the 226g rolls.

My scales might not be accurate enough to tell the difference in most rolls with just one 40%, but I think it's mostly due to the varying degrees of wear on the coins in the rolls. That's why I open every one and check the coins individually.
 

Jan 25, 2023
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I guess this method works if your just looking for silver. I do weigh mine but also search all the coins for important transition dates and errors. Also on the Bicentennial coins there are many errors I found in the revers in the wording Independence Hall that have the E and HAL missing due to poor dye stamp. These coins themselves have value especially if you pop ones that are MS 63 or higher which alot are. The 1971 no FG and many more Kennedy errors still exist. Alot of times the best rolls are the ones someone inherited from grandpa and they get traded in by the roll or loose. For me I enjoy the search and checking each coin for errors etc. Especially when you find the not for business circulation coins mixed in in mint condition.
 

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