Well, I guess I came to it in a roundabout sorta way. Back about a year ago, last December, while visiting the in-laws I got the treasure hunting fire lit right under me something awful. I always liked the idea of finding treasure when I was a kid but what I saw that night made it seem more possible. My mother-in-law decided to show us a stash of silver coins that her father had set aside for her back in the '50s. She pulled a big metal tin out of the attic and inside were rolls and rolls of Walkers, Franklins, Peace dollars, Morgans, Washingtons, Standing Liberties—the whole bit. Now granted at the time, I didn't know to call 'em that. I just thought they were some pretty cool, old looking coins. As I read the dates, and looked at the coins, I started to wonder about all of the stories behind these little pieces of history. Some were over a hundred years old, and I figured they were probably worth something. I started looking up the dates on my phone; doing the math and inventory, it wasn't long before her collection totaled over 10k in silver value. The whole experience kinda shocked me and made me jealous at the same time. Some of the websites I was looking at on my phone that night told me that the coins were 90% silver. This was also intriguing to me. This was actually like finding treasure. For the next couple of days, it was all I could think about. I found myself driving around to all the area banks and asking the tellers if they had any half-dollars or old coins. Well, as you can guess I got about a million "NOs", then finally one "Yes." A teller handed me a '64 Kennedy Half, and with my best poker face I gave her back two quarters. The scam had worked! I had gotten real silver money for next to nothing. I didn't know what it was called or what I was doing yet, but it turns out I was already a coin roll hunter. A few weeks later, I scraped together $500 bucks and started buying boxes of rolled coin. Then I started ordering, and so on, and so on. Now I go through about $5000 in coin every week. My wife first thought all of this was crazy, until I cracked the $2500 mark in silver a few weeks ago. I've never really gotten into watching t.v. too much but I do go sorta crazy with hobbies. I bought a Pioneer Bounty Hunter 101 a few days ago at a yard sale. It was an impulse buy ($20). As I read up on it, I've learned that it's not that great of a machine, but due to my collection, I was able to test it with a lot of different kinds of coins and settings before I took it out today. I'm definitely hooked. I like being outdoors and I love finding silver treasure, so I plan on keeping at it for a long time to come. I thought it was pretty neat finding the nickel today, the sound that it made. Because of the tests I did before going out, I knew that sound either meant gold or a nickel. It was thrilling.
