Ben Cartwright SASS
Bronze Member
During the covid I fell away from CRH, then about 2 months ago I really messed up my knee. They were both bad and I knew I would have to have them replaced, totally bone on bone, both of them. The left has really been bad and I actually scheduled surgery for October the soonest they could do it.
I decided to try hunting some halves again. I got two boxes from my pickup bank and 1 box from my local bank who happened to have it for a customer who never picked it up.
I found 1 40% 1969 in the 3 boxes, two skunks. so that is worth about $2.82 melt value.
With the cost of gas I am starting to wonder if it is really worth it. I have found that I drive about 80-90 miles between picking up and dumping coins. I get about 14-15 mpg so that is about $24 in gas. Now I often find that I go 12 boxes before finding a silver, so that is about $144 worth of gas (24x6 since I get two boxes at a time) I find I don't or can't dump for than $350-400 at a time at a dump bank and some of them limit you to $200 which raises my cost.
the $144 would buy about 40 - 40% halves or 16 90%, these are approximate. It really doesn't seem worth it. My best year I found 82 40% and 30 90% in 50 boxes, and drove 1,300 miles picking up and returning, if I do that this year the gas alone would be about $360. The coin were worth about $437, so I made a net of about $67 and spend untold hours doing it.
Now with the bad knees I have real trouble walking into the banks, a pain scale of about 8 out of 10 at times, usually about 4/10. Next year should be better if the knees are fixed.
Now the other side is that CRH is fun and you feel like Indiana Jones hunting for the holy grail. It is such a rush finding something so looking at it, $360 for a hobby for a year is short money as I have spent that much for a memory card for one of my cameras.
My other hobby is bird photography and I don't make ANY money from that but do it for fun and accolades. www.jeffpadell.com is my photo website.
I decided to try hunting some halves again. I got two boxes from my pickup bank and 1 box from my local bank who happened to have it for a customer who never picked it up.
I found 1 40% 1969 in the 3 boxes, two skunks. so that is worth about $2.82 melt value.
With the cost of gas I am starting to wonder if it is really worth it. I have found that I drive about 80-90 miles between picking up and dumping coins. I get about 14-15 mpg so that is about $24 in gas. Now I often find that I go 12 boxes before finding a silver, so that is about $144 worth of gas (24x6 since I get two boxes at a time) I find I don't or can't dump for than $350-400 at a time at a dump bank and some of them limit you to $200 which raises my cost.
the $144 would buy about 40 - 40% halves or 16 90%, these are approximate. It really doesn't seem worth it. My best year I found 82 40% and 30 90% in 50 boxes, and drove 1,300 miles picking up and returning, if I do that this year the gas alone would be about $360. The coin were worth about $437, so I made a net of about $67 and spend untold hours doing it.
Now with the bad knees I have real trouble walking into the banks, a pain scale of about 8 out of 10 at times, usually about 4/10. Next year should be better if the knees are fixed.
Now the other side is that CRH is fun and you feel like Indiana Jones hunting for the holy grail. It is such a rush finding something so looking at it, $360 for a hobby for a year is short money as I have spent that much for a memory card for one of my cameras.
My other hobby is bird photography and I don't make ANY money from that but do it for fun and accolades. www.jeffpadell.com is my photo website.
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