CRH in the 1960s

[missouriexp]

So I recently discovered treasurenet... and I figured you guys would appreciate this. So I'm not that old but my father used to CRH when he was maybe 10 years old in the early 1960s.

He would walk to the bank get a few coin rolls of dimes, nickels and pennies and take them back pull out all the mercs, buffalos and wheats then do it again the next day by just trading them in. He said he did it for a full summer and the tellers were always happy to help him. He was collecting to try and get the best coins possible for each year / mintage. I think he did it for quarters and halves also for the dates / mintage but back in the early 60s everything was silver.

 

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[Dozer D]

Yea, I know the feeling, been there did that also. Sound like me as a kid back in the 60's again. Was only 14 in 1960, and everything WAS SILVER, you had your pick of the best.

 

[RTR]

Yep remember it well...the good ol days

 

[SlateBeltDigger]

So where is that collection today lol?? Still around or long gone?

 

[Tommybuckets]

I wish I knew about crhing when I was younger. I feel like I caught a good run of it but its tougher than ever. I can only imagine back then. I used to live off tips 1996-2012 and made about 2-3 lbs of change on a good day. Often people would dump their whole pocket load on me. I always checked that change for silver for years. I edge checked and then date checked lol. I even looked for errors etc . I never got a single silver from thousands of dollars in pocket change so I didn't believe finding a silver in circulation was even possible. After seeing this t-net crhing forum and looking over all your posts I finally began asking at my bank. It didn't come easy.
I remember the first time I got three 1964 halves. I had been asking for weeks every time I had a check to cash. Finally the teller laid some on me. I could see them in the tray gleaming and frosty. I couldn't believe the teller would actually give them to me. This was only like 6 yrs ago. You would think I won the lotto by the look on my face! I got in my car and went on a multi-bank rampage and finished the day with maybe 10 silvers. I escalated to dimes, tried nickels, pennies etc. Pre-covid I'd do 2k in a week at least 1k small CWR loads while doing a 9-5 workday. I'd walk into banks with a bucket. All the tellers knew me. They'd be stacking the counter with rolls or ducking to hide depending on how well we got along. My boss would shake his head as I swept rolls of coins off my desk into the drawer when he entered unexpectedly. I'm still fairly addicted but I'm weaning myself off. I did $70 in dimes on lunch and got the ugliest silver I've seen in years. While it doesn't compare to getting full rolls of 90% halves, with the price up each find is more valuable than ever. I do feel like the volume of posts has dropped dramatically. I used to post almost weekly on here. Now its not even worth remembering how to upload pics the finds are so meager. Best of luck n thanks for sharing the tales with us. You all are an inspiration to me.

 

[missouriexp]

So where is that collection today lol?? Still around or long gone?

So most of his original CRH finds are still around in the same condition as when he found them. He collected coins for a long time and did eventually sell about half of his collection but most of what he sold he had personally bought rather than gotten through CRH'ing. He had a very nice barber dime collection that he sold. It was complete except for the 1894-S I think. I can remember asking him as a kid when he was going to get that one. He just kind of laughed and showed me the mintage numbers. I'll have to ask him if he ever found any barber dimes or quarters in his coin roll hunts.

 

[missouriexp]

I wish I knew about crhing when I was younger. I feel like I caught a good run of it but its tougher than ever. I can only imagine back then. I used to live off tips 1996-2012 and made about 2-3 lbs of change on a good day. Often people would dump their whole pocket load on me. I always checked that change for silver for years. I edge checked and then date checked lol. I even looked for errors etc . I never got a single silver from thousands of dollars in pocket change so I didn't believe finding a silver in circulation was even possible. After seeing this t-net crhing forum and looking over all your posts I finally began asking at my bank. It didn't come easy.
I remember the first time I got three 1964 halves. I had been asking for weeks every time I had a check to cash. Finally the teller laid some on me. I could see them in the tray gleaming and frosty. I couldn't believe the teller would actually give them to me. This was only like 6 yrs ago. You would think I won the lotto by the look on my face! I got in my car and went on a multi-bank rampage and finished the day with maybe 10 silvers. I escalated to dimes, tried nickels, pennies etc. Pre-covid I'd do 2k in a week at least 1k small CWR loads while doing a 9-5 workday. I'd walk into banks with a bucket. All the tellers knew me. They'd be stacking the counter with rolls or ducking to hide depending on how well we got along. My boss would shake his head as I swept rolls of coins off my desk into the drawer when he entered unexpectedly. I'm still fairly addicted but I'm weaning myself off. I did $70 in dimes on lunch and got the ugliest silver I've seen in years. While it doesn't compare to getting full rolls of 90% halves, with the price up each find is more valuable than ever. I do feel like the volume of posts has dropped dramatically. I used to post almost weekly on here. Now its not even worth remembering how to upload pics the finds are so meager. Best of luck n thanks for sharing the tales with us. You all are an inspiration to me.

In the 80s, I can remember getting wheat pennies as change. I can remember finding a few older quarters in the 80s from pocket change but not often enough and eventually I stopped checking. Now I feel like I should have kept checking.

 

[Megalodon]

So I recently discovered treasurenet... and I figured you guys would appreciate this. So I'm not that old but my father used to CRH when he was maybe 10 years old in the early 1960s.

He would walk to the bank get a few coin rolls of dimes, nickels and pennies and take them back pull out all the mercs, buffalos and wheats then do it again the next day by just trading them in. He said he did it for a full summer and the tellers were always happy to help him. He was collecting to try and get the best coins possible for each year / mintage. I think he did it for quarters and halves also for the dates / mintage but back in the early 60s everything was silver.

Yep. I did the same thing in the mid-60's and just wish I could have saved more of that silver. But I stopped collecting after my father harshly cleaned my silver coins in my collection. I only saved key dates and errors and sold them to dealers ASAP. I would get on my bike and take them to coin dealers to sell wholesale. Today, it would probably not be allowed to have a child travel on highways and through busy cities at night for relatively long distances. I would usually make about a couple of bucks and in hindsight, it was certainly not worth the risk. Coin shops were more common in the 1960's and were typically open until 8 or 9 pm. Since I preferred to examine coins by natural light, it made sense to me to ride my bike to the shops at night, usually the same day that I found the coins.

A couple of interesting bits about collecting in the '60's:

I remember taking silver certificates to the bank and exchanging them for silver dollars. It seemed like a deal "too good to be true".

I also remember when clad dimes, quarters, and 40% halves came out. It surprised me that people saved the clad coins because they were new and different and continued to spend silver coins.

 

[fistfulladirt]

I started checking for silver around 1975, and roll hunting by about 1977. I didn’t find much because many others had the same idea. We had high unemployment and interest rates nearing 20%.

Supposedly, between 1966-1969, about 65% of all silver minted between 1916-1964 had been melted. Then came the Hunt brothers ten years later, and an estimated 70% of what was left was melted.