Wondering since I am new to CRH, how much should I buy with respect to dimes? It sounds fun and I know my kids would get a kick out of it.
This is a hard question to answer. Of course, the bigger amounts that you search, the better chance you have of finding something. But there is often a lot more to CRH than just buying a bunch of coins, searching them, returning them to a different bank and then buying more. Your first time out, you most likely won't have many, if any problems. But when you start showing up regularly to the same banks either buying or cashing in,
sometimes they get tired of it. Those rolls/boxes of coins cost banks money to order. While they might happily give you that first box, when you show up a few days later wanting another, and then another, and so on and so forth, they may demand that you pay a fee for your boxes, or just refuse to accomodate you. They have every right to do this. They had to pay a fee to get them, so they have every right to charge you a fee to buy them or not sell them to you at all.
One thing many beginners do not think about is that for every roll/box you buy, you must have a bank(s)
willing to take your dumped rejects. Again, infrequent small amounts will most likely never cause you any problems. But regular and/or larger amounts may cause some banks to implement a fee or just outright refuse to take your rejects. I once had a dump bank cut me off after dumping $500 in halves per week through their coin counter after a few weeks. I even had prior approval from the branch manager to dump as much as $1000 per week before I dumped the first coin, but they still cut me off. On the other hand, I have another dump bank that I have been using for over 3 years now. I have dumped up to $1600 at a time at that bank and have never had a problem. Another problem many dime searchers sometimes face is that many coin counting machines aren't all that accurate, and dimes are the most common coin to get miscounted by these machines. Sometimes dimes get counted as pennies. If its only a few its no big deal. If its more, it can get expensive pretty quickly. If you are going to use a coin counter for your rejects, "test" it a couple of times with small, known amounts to gauge its accuracy before dumping in a large amount.
I would estimate that over the 3+ years that I have been reading and posting on this forum, the average "return" for dimes is right around 1-1.25 silver dimes per $250 searched. My personal average is 1 silver dime per ~$1100 searched.
You can search dimes by rim searching only. A clean silver dime's rim will stick out and be seen easily. However, not all silver dimes are clean. Some will be dirty and/or tarnished and can easily be missed on a quick glance. Any dime that looks "funny" should be date-checked just to make sure. Also, not all silver dimes are 1964 and before. Since 1992, the mint has produced 90% silver proof sets. These will have the look of a silver dime, be dated 1992-present, and have a "s" mintmark. Occasionally, these coins find their way into circulation. They aren't found very often, but something you should be aware of.
If you're doing this as an activity to share with your children (kudos to you!), I'm going to suggest that you at least consider throwing some pennies in there to search as well. Here's why: Since dimes can be rim-searched, after a little practice 1 person can search an entire box of dimes in 15 minutes or less (and much quicker than that if they are in clear plastic rolls - you don't even have to open those unless you see a coin worthy of a closer inspection). I don't know how many kids you have, but a box of dimes might not last them 5 minutes.
Just some things to think about. Hope this helps. Good luck!
