It's been a long long time since I've posted on this forum. I used to complain about the word getting out about the hobby and that being the ending of it. With this forum along with Youtubers, it's not a secret anymore. I get the entertainment value part but at the same time, the word spreads and someone with big money will try to squeeze out the little guy. People used to wonder if the coin sorting companies sorted out silver. Well the answer is a partial yes from the poster Liu21. With the advent of newer coin sorting machines that not only count but sort out non-matching coins, it's a matter of time before that replaces the other older machines. With the mention of Loomis sorting out coins, that's probably gonna be the new wave. This hobby will eventually die out for finding silver. You can still do it for errors, rare dates, and rare collectibles put out by the mint but silver days will eventually be a question of is it worth your time? Only option will be to ask the tellers for their coins before it gets sent off. The hobby won't be so fun anymore.
I actually moved from NorCal to SoCal a few years back. I started to CRH as a hobby again last year after taking a few years off from it. What is interesting is that I think that's what is happening here now with boxes of commonly used coins. I was trying to find enough war nickels to fill a whole roll (I don't have huge aspirations for this as it takes longer to go through a nickel box than a halves box). I recall the rates being different and used to get on average one war nickel per 1-2 boxes with occasional Buffalo Nickels mixed in years ago. I've been on skunk streak with the war nickels. Yes, I do find the Buffalo Nickels (common dates and no-dated) but the war nickels have disappeared. Additionally, any foreign coin found was of 75% copper and 25% nickel composition. These boxes all have a stamp on them "Brinks Los Angeles Coin" and the name of the person who inspected the box supposedly stamped on them. I know from experience that these are very skunkish and most likely sorted with new machines. It was notable that the only good box that I got that had 2 war nickels in there had a "mechanical" word stamped on it. That was rare. It lead to me to conclude that these coin sorting facilities are using new machines that sort out not only the foreign unwanted coins but the silver too. I'm guessing that the only reason why that one box had war nickels was because the new sorting machine must have gone out of service briefly and they had to use a "mechanical" older version they had as a backup. I had a bad feeling this was going to ruin this hobby eventually.
After seeing that ebay user's website, I noticed all those items being sold are ones you'd find in non-sorted boxes. I have found my share of guitar picks and British Pences throughout the years. It's oddly noticeable that he sells rolls of all sorts of coins but not Buffalo Nickels. Lol. Buffalo Nickels are probably the only types of old collectible coins from common denominations that can't be sorted out by newer machines. But then again who wants to CRH for common date Buffalos and worthless no-date Buffalos. You can still CRH for pennies though. Hopefully, not every facility starts this. As for halves, I have found silver for non-stamped boxes after going through streaks of 18 and 15 skunks. I didn't have pronounced skunk streaks of this magnitude back in the day. Stamped boxes with what I mentioned above are extremely skunkish. As Liu21 stated, it really depends on the sorting facility who is doing this. I would say to only send your dumps to banks serviced by those facilities. I noticed branches from completely different bank companies will both have nickel boxes with the same stamp on them which in my opinion, was that they were both serviced by the same coin sorting company. This was drastically different than I was up north in the SF Bay Area. I noticed back then, the wrappers were different if the coins came from a Brinks, Loomis, or Dunbar facility. After for example, Brinks dimes boxes were skunkish, I would get coins from a Dunbar serviced bank and there were better. BTW, I think Brinks eventually bought up Dunbar. I never had issues with Loomis boxes back then. Off course, this could be a new thing Loomis got into after the word of CRHing going viral.
I'm guessing that area in Pennsylvania where the seller sorts must be very dry for silver. If any CRHer in that area can confirm, that would be nice. If these new sorting machines come to dominate coin sorting facilities, that would the end of CRHing nickels and dimes. People can still CRH pennies and quarters. Quarters for those W minted coins only. Unless the mint decides to pump new rarities into circulation, CRHing will go by the way side due to the big companies like Loomis squeezing out the little guy. I really don't do this hobby too much anymore as it's turned into a question of whether it's worth the time and gas to do this. I was only trying to fill a roll of war nickels through CRHing which back in the day should've been easy.
IMO, big sorting companies shouldn't do this to squeeze out CRHers. CRHers do provide a source of revenue for these companies because they charge banks to process coins. CRHers get coins from the bank and send them back to be sorted, recounted, and wrapped again. Sorting companies make money from this.
It's been a long time for me but those are just my thoughts on this.
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