Immy's Casino Royale

[Immy]

Sleepy's dime thread was the inspiration for this (with apologies to the James Bond franchise). Now that I'm visiting the El Cortez more often than usual (aka one of the last coin-op casinos in Vegas) it's time to create a thread to post ongoing results. I can't say it'll be as frequently updated as Sleepy's, but count on at least one or two excursions a month with hopefully interesting finds. Only wish I had the stamina and eyesight of my younger years.

In addition, with about 35 years of casino searching in the books, I'll augment my posts with stats and trivia from past casino visits.


Yesterday was a pretty great day amongst the nickels. These two beauties were in my bucket from around $100 searched. And after some Nik-A-Date treatment the year 1916 emerged. 2nd buffalo this year!


I always try to situate myself near the self-serve coin counters since the reject chutes are good sources of stuff. Yesterday was no exception. A guy came in with a large bag of non-casino coins. We got chatting and he said he got them from a storage unit he bought. Told him I'd take any rejects he didn't want and he gave me the 1981 Taiwan 10 dollars pictured above. Checking another machine also got me the 1950 Hong Kong 10 cent-er, my oldest foreign coin this year. Great stuff!

Fun Stats: Last 1916 buffalo I found was on 4/27/04. And, amazingly, the last 45-S war nickel I found on...9/3/11, exactly eight years ago to the day!

This Week in Casino Searching History: In 1999, I completed a roll of 1954-D nickels.

 

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[Immy]

Independence Day at the Cortez!



$200/quarters (home-searched)
How 'bout this sweet find! Heard that lovely silver sound as I was emptying the machine and sure enough, this beautiful 1952-S was the prize for this hunt. My crappy camera makes it look toned but it actually looks much nicer. No W's or other interesting stuff. Five Maya's and six Sally's, but the P mints still elude me.

$100/halves
Big ol' skunk. 😡

 

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[Immy]

Hot & Cold at the Cortez



Local temperature: 110 degrees. But the machines inside the Cortez were cold as ice as far as giving up any goodies in the quarter department - $100 yielded nothing. So before I left I did my customary sweep of all four customer-available coin counters...and something caught my eye on one of them

Above is what the business end looks like, with a close-up of the holes that coins fall thru. On this machine I saw what looked like a coin stuck to the interior underneath the holes. I was able to nab it and it turned out to be a 1998 Canadian dime. Feeling around a bit more I also got a 2004 Brit penny. Then it dawned on me - the underside of the holes must be magnetic! It's not something that can be lifted up for inspection but I'll pay closer attention in the future.


Rescued! A pair of queens.

 

[srcdco]

Hot & Cold at the Cortez



Local temperature: 110 degrees. But the machines inside the Cortez were cold as ice as far as giving up any goodies in the quarter department - $100 yielded nothing. So before I left I did my customary sweep of all four customer-available coin counters...and something caught my eye on one of them

Above is what the business end looks like, with a close-up of the holes that coins fall thru. On this machine I saw what looked like a coin stuck to the interior underneath the holes. I was able to nab it and it turned out to be a 1998 Canadian dime. Feeling around a bit more I also got a 2004 Brit penny. Then it dawned on me - the underside of the holes must be magnetic! It's not something that can be lifted up for inspection but I'll pay closer attention in the future.


Rescued! A pair of queens.

Those are the same machines that Wegmans grocery stores use on the east coast. There are 7 magnets on the underside of the latticework. I check them every time I go into a Wegmans and I've found around $30 Canadian (including a Loonie and Toonie), two 1943 steel cents, and coins from other countries and plenty of screws, nuts, batteries, etc.
The magnets are not under every spot, but 2 are in front , 2 on the sides, and 3 in back. They are pretty strong and it can be hard to get the coins off them without dropping them into the machine. When that happens, I just run the machine and it rejects them.

Scott

 

[Immy]

The Cortez had me saying WOW on this visit!



$120/nickels
Holy moly! You aren't seeing things, that's a 1906 V nickel that plopped out of a poker machine yesterday. I was stunned!! Especially since it's been almost 16 years since the last time I found one. Here are all my other V nickel finds over the years:

6/3/02 - 1912
11/26/05 - 1899
10/14/06 - 1906

Weird that I found none for the first 16 years after moving here in Sept 1985, then three in just four years, then another 16-year drought before the next. Maybe this is the first of another emergent trio. Can't wait!

$200/quarters
Nada. Quarters have been letting me down ever since the silver of July 4th.

Magnet Rescue
Now that I'm aware of where the magnets are on the coin counters I'm rescuing more foreigns. This trip I saved a Mexican 5 peso (2018) and 1 peso (2016) plus a 1979 Canadian quarter.

 

[enamel7]

Good to see you still at it Immy!

 

[Immy]

Yeah, still plugging away. Good to see you still here as well enamel.

I've added a new facet to casino hunting too. Each time I leave the Cortez I bring home $100-$200 in quarters that I home-search, then roll up and bring to my local bank. According to them I'm their number #2 supplier of rolled coin. Dunno how true that is but they're happy to get it. In return, they save me all the small dollars they come across. I'm filling up my Presidential books quite nicely as a result. Even brought home a few Ikes once. Win-win.

 

[Immy]

I'm always unsure whether to post when I find very little or nothing from the Cortez. The past two weeks have produced only a 1938 nickel out of $100 and absolutely zilch from $400 in quarters. Haven't scored a W in over two months.

An odd thing happened when I was sitting at the nickel machines the other day. A couple of people started randomly talking about old nickels and one lady said she's found a couple of buffalos. What's with this competition invading my turf?! Access to the machines is already pretty limited and I don't need people jumping my claims!

 

[Immy]

Category 1 1)1955 2)1949-S 3)1955-D 4)1955-S 5)1950-S 6)1954-S 7)1949-D 8)1946-S 9)1949 10)1951-S 11)1958 12)1947-S

Category 2 13)1948-S 14)1953-S 15)1952-S 16)1950-D 17)1947-D 18)1950 19)1948-D 20)1953 21)1951-D 22)1946-D 23)1960 24)1962

Category 3 25)1948 26)1959 27)1961 28)1952 29)1951 30)1954-D 31)1956-D 32)1956 33)1957-D 34)1954 35)1947 36)1952-D

Category 4 37)1963 38)1953-D 39)1958-D 40)1957 41)1959-D 42)1960-D 43)1961-D 44)1946 45)1962-D 46)1963-D 47)1964 48)1964-D gray = wanted black = Found

My friendly neighborhood Coinstar gave up some silver today, and it was a new one for my all-time Roosie list. Now at 20/48, almost half-way there!

 

[Immy]

Laboring thru a few hundred in coins from the Cortez.


$200/quarters (home searched)
It's been weeks (months?) since my last W-mint find and at this point I'll even take duplicates. Wasn't meant to be this week but I did score my first 2022-D Nina Otero-Warren.


$200/halves
Haven't searched halves in a couple of months and delving back into them proved rewarding! 1968-D silver; a 2000-D magician's coin (paired with a Mexican 20 centavo) and my first 2022! Nice selection.

 

[Immy]

The Cortez scares up some silver!

Wartime Nickels [515]

1942-P (11/4/19) [31]

1942-S (10/15/22) [23]

1943-P (10/15/22) [108]

1943-D (9/15/09) [9]

1943-S (5/30/22) [105]

1944-P (12/17/19) [53]

1944-D (9/24/19) [21]

1944-S (10/30/20) [22]

1945-P (6/15/21) [59]

1945-D (8/12/11) [21]

1945-S (3/23/21) [63]

$150/nickels - For the first time in a few months I was able to fit in a nice volume of nickel searching and it paid off big time with two silver wartime - 1942-S & 1943-P. And how about that nice high mintmark on the 1942? Wonder if the San Fran mint was testing out mintmark placement.



$200/quarters (home searched) - The P-mint 2022's have been pretty elusive here on the west coast but I finally snagged one. And it was a Wilma Mankiller, not what I expected to find first but it's a welcome addition to the collection. As is my first West Pointer since June - a 2020-W Tallgrass. Still missing the Samoan bats, and you'd think this is the month to find that! Another sweet discovery was this 1969 Japanese 10 yen that was plucked from the coin counter reject chute.

 

[Immy]

Here's a bit of an update on another search I haven't discussed for a while - NIFC halves.

Each time I hit the Cortez I try to look thru $100-$200 in halves and while silver is still pretty scarce, my NIFC collection is filling in very nicely (today's find was a 2012-P). In fact, I'm down to just ten dates needed. So you know what that means...it's time for a top ten list!

Needed dates are: 02-P, 06-D, 13-P, 14-P, 15-D, 16-D, 19PD, 20-P, 22-P

Of course the 2023's are on the way but it'll be some time before they appear, and maybe I'll be closer to finding these final ten by then. If we go by mintage figures, the 2013-P should be next, but you never know. Let the countdown begin!

 

[Immy]

Wartime Nickels [516]

1942-P (11/4/19) [31]

1942-S (10/15/22) [23]

1943-P (10/15/22) [108]

1943-D (9/15/09) [9]

1943-S (11/15/22) [106]

1944-P (12/17/19) [53]

1944-D (9/24/19) [21]

1944-S (10/30/20) [22]

1945-P (6/15/21) [59]

1945-D (8/12/11) [21]

1945-S (3/23/21) [63]

$50/nickels
As long as the Cortez has nickel machines, I'll search 'em, and hopefully find more goodies like this 1943-S wartime. It's funny how this nearly 80-year-old nickel shows up but I still can't find a 2022-P. All in good time I suppose.


It was a rescue mission again at the Cortez coin counter when I saw two stuck to the interior magnet. It was touch and go, but I safely retrieved this Mexican 2 peso (2004) and a Serbian 2 dinara (2020), the latter being an entirely new country for my collection. 👍

$200/halves
Oh yeah, found squat. 😒

 

[Immy]

Here's something I neglected to do last month: my 2020 survey of nickels found should've gotten a war nickel update.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11. 1942-S (10/15/22)
12. 1938 (6/22/21)
13. 1954 (3/16/21)
14. 1939-D (3/16/21)
15. 1950 (1/23/21)

 

[Immy]

Thanking the Cortez for this bounty!



Wartime Nickels [517]

1942-P (11/4/19) [31]

1942-S (10/15/22) [23]

1943-P (10/15/22) [108]

1943-D (9/15/09) [9]

1943-S (11/15/22) [106]

1944-P (12/17/19) [53]

1944-D (9/24/19) [21]

1944-S (10/30/20) [22]

1945-P (6/15/21) [59]

1945-D (8/12/11) [21]

1945-S (11/24/22) [64]

$155/nickels
To coincide with the wide array of things to eat today there was quite the buffet of finds at the nickel slots. Contrary to what you'd think, the casinos are quite busy on Thanksgiving and I had to stand my ground at my machine because lots of people wanted a crack at a pretty big jackpot.

It was a great payoff in another way with this nice variety of finds, starting with war nickel #5 for the year, a 1945-S. Next to it you'll see an addition to another ongoing list, when I snagged a 1948-S for my 2020 nickel survey (see below). Sticking with the San Fran mint, the third coin pictured above is a 1969-S beauty, only my 26th proof nickel found in the wild. It still has nice sharp rims too.

Not pictured but also found were a 1939, 1949-S, my first 2022-P and a 1987 Canadian.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10. 1948-S (11/24/22)
11. 1942-S (10/15/22)
12. 1938 (6/22/21)
13. 1954 (3/16/21)
14. 1939-D (3/16/21)
15. 1950 (1/23/21)

 

[Immy]

$50/nickels
After such a good hunt on Thursday I had to give the Cortez another try with the extra time off this weekend. While the number of goodies was seriously down, the sole find was a beaut, my 10th 1936-P buffalo all time and first in double digits. In fact, my last four buffalos have been from 1936 - three P's and an S.

$100/halves
Nada. Did some math to see just how likely it is that I'll find the last NIFC's I need. All P&D mint halves dated 2002-2021 add up to 111,350,000 coins. Of those I need 22,700,000, or about 20%. Didn't count the 2022-P since we don't know mintage figures yet. So I need a fraction of NIFC's, which are already a fraction of all clad Kennedy's. Whew!

 

[Immy]

Despite the demise of the El Cortez nickel machines (see the sad news here) I drowned my sorrows with some quarter and half hunting.

$200/quarters (home searched)
Skunked. Still looking for P-mint Sally Ride and both Anna May Wong.

$200/halves
In addition to a 1972-S proof, I ticked off one of the last ten NIFC's I need:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10. 2002-P

Rescued from the self-serve coin counter were a 1999 (Dec) Canadian quarter and an Aladdin's Castle game token.

 

[Immy]

Time for a wrap-up of my nickel totals over 37 years of casino hunting. First up are V nickels and buffalos. Any date in parentheses is the most recent find.

V NICKELS
1899 (11/26/05)
1906 (10/14/06 & 7/26/22)
1912 (6/3/02)

BUFFALOS

Category 1 1)1926-S 2)1931-S 3)13-S (T2) 4)1924-S 5)1915-S 6)1921-S 7)1913-S (T1) 8)1927-S 9)1914-S 10)1914-D 11)13-D (T2) 12)1917-S 13)1925-D 14)1918-S 15)1924-D 16)13-D (T1) ---------------

Category 2 17)1930-S 18)1937-S 19)1926-D 20)1927-D 21)1923-S 22)1925-S 23)1928-D 24)1928-S 25)1938-D 26)1934-D 27)1919-S 28)1915-D 29)1929-S 30)1919-D 31)1918-D 32)1929-D ---------------

Category 3 33)1920-D 34)1920-S 35)1917-D 36)1935-S 37)1921 38)1916-S 39)1935-D 40)1916-D 41)1936-S 42)1937-D 43)1934 44)1914 45)1915 46)1924 47)1930 48)1928 ---------------

Category 4 49)1936-D 50)1913 (T2) 51)1913 (T1) 52)1918 53)1925 54)1923 55)1929 56)1927 57)1926 58)1917 59)1935 60)1919 61)1920 62)1916 63)1937 64)1936 ---------------

35 out of 64 (63% of the series) ****************** gray = found // bold = unfound
The above years are arranged by mintage, #1 being the scarcest.

I only started keeping track of each buffalo I found in 1997, so I don't have a precise grand total. 1997 to 2022 I found 79 buffalos, or about 3 per year. My searching was much more prolific in the 80s and 90s, so if I say five found per year during the early years that puts the total at close to 150, a pretty reliable figure I'd say.

Earliest recorded find: 1923 (3/2/97)
First find after joining TNet in 2005: 1913 (Ty2) (12/6/05)
Final find: 1936 (11/26/22)
Most common: 1936 (10x)
PDS years found: 1917, 1926, 1930 (PS), 1936
Unfound years: 1921, 1931, 1938

Jefferson stats coming up...

 

[Immy]

At last, the final Jefferson stats. The first two "All nickels" totals represent the percentage completion of accumulating entire rolls of each date/mintmark. I probably could've gotten higher rates if I hadn't taken a multi-year pause in casino hunting about 10 years ago.

Additionally, the uncompleted roll totals will be off from my previous lists because in this compilation I included examples that went into Whitman folders. Speaking of which, two whole sets were completed, and a third was one coin away (50-D) from being finished.

All nickels 1938-1959

2157 of 2440 [88.4%]

All nickels 1938-1959 (excluding silver)

1830 of 2000 [91.5%]

1930's

1938 ---- 54 (8/10/22)
1938-D -- 7 (10/26/08)
1938-S -- 9 (3/10/20)
1939 ---- 495 (11/24/22)
1939-D -- 5 (3/16/21)
1939-S -- 21 (11/4/19)

Wartime Nickels [517]

1942-P (11/4/19) [31]
1942-S (10/15/22) [23]
1943-P (10/15/22) [108]
1943-D (9/15/09) [9]
1943-S (11/15/22) [106]
1944-P (12/17/19) [53]
1944-D (9/24/19) [21]
1944-S (10/30/20) [22]
1945-P (6/15/21) [59]
1945-D (8/12/11) [21]
1945-S (11/24/22) [64]

Mintage under 10 million

1949-S -- 53 (11/24/22)
1950 ---- 37 (1/23/21)
1950-D -- 2 (2/27/05)
1951-S -- 52 (7/20/21)
1955 ---- 29 (6/12/21)

Total found (less than one roll)

1950 [37] (1/23/21)
1955 [29] (6/12/21)
1939-S [21] (11/4/19)
1938-S [9] (3/10/20)
1939-D [5] (3/16/21)
1938-D [7] (10/26/08)
1950-D [2] (2/27/05)

Proofs (26)

1961
1962
1968-S
1969-S
1970-S
1971-S
1972-S
1973-S
1974-S
1976-S
1978-S
1979-S (Ty1) (x2)
1980-S
1981-S (x2)
1985-S
1987-S
1988-S
1990-S (x2)
1994-S
1996-S
2001-S
2002-S
2012-S

Casino Royale Comes to a Close

And with these totals now recorded, I've decided that my casino hunting days are sadly over, not just for nickels, but all coins. It's simply not worth the time and effort for what few finds I may discover in quarters and halves. And I'm not getting any younger. My first recorded find at The El Cortez was in 2017 so it gave me five good years of searching.

I hope you all enjoyed reading about my casino exploits. I enjoyed bringing it to you.

Happy Hunting!

Immy