Avago's 2019 Half Dollar Totals

[Avago]

Well 2019 year was a year of a big up and a big down in my half dollar searching. I nearly smashed through our old 2015 record, came so close but ended up just a few ounces short. I did the highest volume out of any of the years I've been hunting which probably has a bit to do with the results, but if there's no silver in the boxes it doesn't matter what volume you do.



Before I get into my totals I want to put the volume of boxes searched into perspective for those who might casually be browsing the forum and see a 'get-rich-quick' opportunity. As a financial investment, the amount of time and effort involved in getting these kinds of results would be better spent at a minimum wage job if the only goal was profit.

Take into consideration the amount of time it takes not just to unwrap and search the boxes but also the time it takes picking them up, dumping them, standing in line, standing in line, standing in line, and the amount of $ spent on gas getting everywhere.

I ended up doing 574 boxes, or $287,000 worth and out of those, 368 of those were skunks:

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Also had 73 boxes with just ONE silver

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I had 39 boxes with TWO silvers

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I had 35 boxes with THREE to FIVE silvers.

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I had 29 boxes with SIX to TEN silvers.
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I had 30 boxes with eleven or more silvers.
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So then you be the judge... Are the skunks and low returns worth the highs? I just wanted to do something to visualize the effort it takes to achieve any results (that are not even guaranteed!)

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Well, onto the totals!

Between boxes, loose halves, CWR and MWR I searched $291,495.00 and recovered 257.16 ozt of silver which was just a little over 3 ozt short of 2015 total. In 2015 we had 3 or 4 extremely good boxes which pushed our total high whereas this year it was a relatively steady stream of 1-2 oz boxes through the first half of the year with a couple nice boxes mixed in. We also pulled more from CWR this year than any other year though we searched far less.

Boxes: $287,000.00 - 210.48 ozt
209 x 90% and 912 x 40% - including 52 Franklins, 28 Walkers, a Barber, three modern silver proofs and a modern silver commemorative.

Loose: $335.00 - 3.01 ozt
3 x 90% and 13 x 40%

CWR: $3,940.00 - 34.39 ozt
64 x 90% and 76 x 40% - I had a few SOLID rolls this year, one solid 40%, one solid of Walkers, and two solid of mixed 40% and 90%. I'd never gotten one before so it was a bucket list-er I was able to check off this year!

Misc. MWR: $220.00 - 1.18 ozt
0 x 90% and 8 x 40% - I wish all MWR I pick up produced at this rate!

In addition to the silver pulled from half dollar searching, I was also lucky enough to eyeball some silver quarters in a bag off a coin machine that I was able to buy which yielded another 6.69 ozt.

I also scored a little bit out of the coin machine reject chutes - 3 quarters and 12 dimes for another 1.41 ozt.

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So it was a productive year! As I mentioned, most of the silver that I recovered from boxes occurred in the first half of the year with a dramatic drop off halfway through the year. Here are some stats for my boxes for the year:

7 months Jan-July 344 boxes: 187.19 ozt (average over half an ounce per box!)
5 months Aug-Dec 230 boxes: 23.29 ozt
If the first 7 month rate of return kept up, I would have ended up with over 322 ozt from boxes by the end of the year!

Skunks: 368
Silver boxes: 206
Skunk rate: 64%

Silvers per box: 1.95
90% per box: 0.36
40% per box: 1.59
90%/40% rate: 1:4.36
$ searched per silver: $256.02

Ounces per box: 0.37
$ search per ounce: $1,363.55

Enders: 101
Silvers per ender: 11.1

Worst skunk streak: 16 boxes
Best silver streak: 10 boxes

Top 5 boxes by ounces
51 silvers - 2 x 90% and 49 x 40% for 7.97 ozt
50 silvers - 2 x 90% and 48 x 40% for 7.82 ozt
43 silvers - 3 x 90% and 40 x 40% for 7.00 ozt
37 silvers - 0 x 90% and 37 x 40% for 5.47 ozt
18 silvers - 13 x 90% and 5 x 40% for 5.44 ozt

Top 3 weeks by ounces:
12 boxes - 10 x 90% and 165 x 40% for 28.02 ozt
10 boxes - 16 x 90% and 46 x 40% for 12.59 ozt
10 boxes - 17 x 90% and 38 x 40% for 11.37 ozt

Top month by ounces: June
46 boxes - 27 x 90% and 210 x 40% for 40.82 ozt

Worst month: November
46 boxes - 4 x 90% and 10 x 40% for 2.93 ozt


Click on these to take a better look! Blue lines for silvers and red lines for ounces. The blue/red horizontal lines on the first three charts are the respective averages and the purple line is the per-box average. You can really see how the second half of the year went south.








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In dumping the rejects, I ended the year $84.86 short including a one-time $44.00 machine error in my favor. That ate into my profit about 2% and translates to a 15 cent loss per box. I suspect most of the shortage came from the machines this year but short rolls in CWR/Boxes likely also contributed to an extent.

I also kept track of clad finds and recovered quite a bit this year which makes up for the machine shortages, a lot from the internal reject bins that I was allowed to search through. I was able to scrounge up $115.87 in loose change including some unusual silvers: an SLQ, 1910 1 Mark, 1917 Merc, and a 1943 Australian dime.

I was also present for a bank robbery! I'm surprised it took five years for me to get caught up in one given the amount of time I spend in banks.

Here are some highlight pics! My wife was with me for some of these, so that explains the fingernails







In total, since mid-2014, I've now searched $1,252,852.50 and pulled 1066.11 ozt averaging $1,175.16 searched to find each ounce.

Here's two charts outlining the progress on an individual box level from mid-2014 to present spanning 2,421 boxes.



For reference, here are some of my highlight threads for the year:

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/598069-first-solid-little-score.html
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/601220-coin-machine-jammed-gold.html
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/603532-two-100-year-old-silvers-week.html
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/609912-quarter-bag-silver-bonanza.html
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/612153-151-years-old.html
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/618183-robbery.html

Hopefully the next decade is good to us all, happy hunting everyone!

Here are the links to my past years' totals for reference:

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/597563-goodbye-2018-avagos-totals.html
2017 - http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/crh-logs/421847-avagos-goodies.html Pg. 28, looks like I didn't make a separate thread that year
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/526071-avago-s-2016-stats-totals.html
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/487037-avagos-2015-year-end-totals.html
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/445422-avagos-2014-crh-totals-stats.html

 

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[Greastart]

Dayummmmm....You're a dedicated coin searchin' foo....!

Avago, if I wore a hat I'd remove it out of respect. You had an incredible year but put it into perspective well with your post! It ain't all schmidts and giggles walking along and picking up silver. One full year I averaged just 6 boxes per week and came close to 100ozt. It was a lot of work, time, etc...just as you pointed out.

May the Silver Gods bless you even more this year.

Grease

 

[Zomotion]

Tell it like it is Avago! Great year and such a good year end wrap up, always awesome to read your post... I've been anxiously waiting

 

[Bquamb]

At first i was going to say "Great, another waste of a read. Copy a million skunks... (blah blah blah)"

*Wow*

This looks like quite the hobby and those gloves sure look like they're well used!

The totals for your $1.25M in searched rolls is crazy - What do you do with all your returns? and How good of a relationship have you formed with your tellers and dump banks!?>!?!

Great stuff =D

 

[Megalodon]

Nice data filled post, well presented. Several of us have piggy-backed onto tommybuckets recent 2019 thread and comparing results shows some similar results and conclusions (on a % basis, since our volume is lower) and a few differences to those you have presented here.

The greatest difference is in volume searched. And thanks to high volume, in total silver recovered. Congrats on your first place trophy.

The similar results are for skunk box%, with results mostly in the 64-66%. Your 90% silver rate is slightly lower than some others at under 19% (I got 24%) but this could be explained by dilution with so many 40%ers.

A few questions come to mind. 1. Do your dump banks have free coinstars for dumping that provide high volume dumping - or are they the type of machines that require frequent bag changes? If the latter, have any of those dump banks modified their machines to take two bags of halves instead of just one? 2. Have you noticed any coin sorters to be significantly better or worse than others? I am so discouraged by Dunbar rolls for example, that opening a box and finding rolls in Dumbar wrappers then seems like a chore rather than an adventure and I am about to stop a standing order at a bank that sells me those. 3. Do you know who picks up your dumped coins and is it a company that then provides coins to your pickup banks? 4. Any highlights or favorite finds (classic commems, 1970's, particularly high grade silver proofs, rare dates, notably high grades - especially among Walkers and Franklins) from the year?

Have you posted about the bank robbery?

Thanks and happy hunting 2020!

 

[Tiredman]

love to see record keeping

 

[TheMastermind]

Awesome take, bro! And as always, incredible attention to detail.

Crazy volume! Blows my mind that you are able to dump all of that coin through a machine. With that volume I would absolutely need to have a bank or banks accept Coinlok bags for dumping. Alas, I once had that, and it was marvelous.

Love the visualization you added, really drives the point home that this isn't a very lucrative hobby and involves an absolute ton of effort for what many times amounts to nothing.

Happy and worthwhile hunting in 2020!

 

[Johnny5]

Nice reading. My only question is did your pants turn brown with the bank robbery?

 

[Avago]

This looks like quite the hobby and those gloves sure look like they're well used!

The totals for your $1.25M in searched rolls is crazy - What do you do with all your returns? and How good of a relationship have you formed with your tellers and dump banks!?>!?!

Thanks Bquamb! I probably spent around $25 this year just on disposable gloves

I'm lucky enough to have access to free coin counting in my area which I'm able to safely spread the dumps around. All it takes is time and patience.

I'm friendly and pleasant with all of the tellers and that goes a long way! They don't usually mind having to come over and clear an error from the machine or having to change the bag, but I know it certainly has to bother them when their line is backing up and i'm stuck at the machine. I never pressure them to come take care of me, they know that I won't have an issue waiting until they address other customers ahead of me.

 

[Megalodon]

Now I see your highlight threads at the end of your original post. Good stuff!

In addition to being pleasant and patient with the coin machines, I never go at the end of the day. I hear the tellers talk about other CRH'ers who dump 5 minutes before closing. I also never dump on saturdays or the day before a holiday when they are busiest with long lines. And they remember the quality Godiva chocolates I bring.

 

[Avago]

The greatest difference is in volume searched. And thanks to high volume, in total silver recovered. Congrats on your first place trophy.

Hey Megalodon, glad to see someone else is as crazy with the stats as I am haha!

The similar results are for skunk box%, with results mostly in the 64-66%. Your 90% silver rate is slightly lower than some others at under 19% (I got 24%) but this could be explained by dilution with so many 40%ers.

Definitely the dilution of 40% causing that! With some of the better boxes I came back with this year yielding almost all 40%, it really skewed the average.

A few questions come to mind. 1. Do your dump banks have free coinstars for dumping that provide high volume dumping - or are they the type of machines that require frequent bag changes? If the latter, have any of those dump banks modified their machines to take two bags of halves instead of just one? 2. Have you noticed any coin sorters to be significantly better or worse than others? I am so discouraged by Dunbar rolls for example, that opening a box and finding rolls in Dumbar wrappers then seems like a chore rather than an adventure and I am about to stop a standing order at a bank that sells me those. 3. Do you know who picks up your dumped coins and is it a company that then provides coins to your pickup banks? 4. Any highlights or favorite finds (classic commems, 1970's, particularly high grade silver proofs, rare dates, notably high grades - especially among Walkers and Franklins) from the year?

To address these:

1 - I used to have access to a couple coinstar-style machines years ago that didn't fill up as frequently, but now I only have access to machines that have a single $1,000 half dollar bag. Over the years I've scaled up to doing a $1,000 dump every time at every bank, so they know when they see me coming that they will absolutely need to come to the machine at some point to change the bag, which isn't actually necessarily a bad thing because it allows them to think ahead and plan their time instead of being surprised IF the bag fills.

I WISH they would modify to have multiple bags for halves, not sure if that's even something they can determine. I've even looked up the cost of one of the machines to own myself (as I'm sure others have) in fantasizing about just having unlimited access to a machine that can fill every bag with halves!

2 & 3 - In my area, I pickup from two different banks, one national and one regional who both use Garda to courier. I know my dump locations use either Brinks/Dunbar to courier, but what happens in between that has really remained a mystery. I have marked coins in the past and they usually take a long time to get back to me, and never in the quantity that I send them out, so at the very least I know I'm not immediately getting my dumps back.

4 - YES I created a thread last week showing some of my highlights! http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/c...m-2019-half-dollar-crop-nifc-silver-gold.html

Have you posted about the bank robbery?
Thanks and happy hunting 2020!

I sure did! Have a read: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/coin-roll-hunting/618183-robbery.html

 

[Avago]

Crazy volume! Blows my mind that you are able to dump all of that coin through a machine. With that volume I would absolutely need to have a bank or banks accept Coinlok bags for dumping. Alas, I once had that, and it was marvelous.

Thanks Mastermind! It's quite time consuming forcing all of that coin through the machines, not to mention the occasional shortages. I've approached my dump banks about just bringing them in sealed $1,000 bags but it was a no-go for them. They insisted that it all goes through the machine. I wish though, how much easier that would be...

 

[Megalodon]

Now I remember your robbery thread. Heck, I even commented on it at the time...That's not the kind of excitement we need in CRH!