Read the newbie thread but still have 2 questions for CRH

momandboys · Dec 17, 2013

Hi,

I thought this would be a fun activity to do this winter on snow days with my two sons. I have read though a lot of posts and get the general idea of what to look for and how to obtain the coins. Two questions that I ponder:

1. What is a merc?
2. Are the 1976 bicentennial quarters worth anything?

Thank you!

Omega · Dec 17, 2013

Mercury dimes were minted between 1916 and 1945

76 quarters are nothing special

Hunt halfs

Omega

Hunter612 · Dec 17, 2013

1. A merc is a mercury dime.

2. I save bicentennial quarters because I don't see many of them anymore. You can get a small premium over face on ebay for a whole roll of them.

Also welcome to t-net.

baddbluff · Dec 17, 2013

momandboys said:
Hi,

I thought this would be a fun activity to do this winter on snow days with my two sons. I have read though a lot of posts and get the general idea of what to look for and how to obtain the coins. Two questions that I ponder:

1. What is a merc?
2. Are the 1976 bicentennial quarters worth anything?

Thank you!

If you are looking for just "a fun activity to do this winter on snow days", BEWARE!

With your first discovery of silver, you will be hooked and this will become an all-consuming obsession that will be on your mind every waking minute of the day (and will sometimes fill your dreams at night). LOL

Consider yourself warned.

It is pretty fun, though.

Good luck & welcome!

travelerga · Dec 17, 2013

Hello, my name is Mike, it has been 5 days since I bought any halves, LOL... withdrawals are painful ...

CoinFetcher · Dec 17, 2013

Hello, My name is Woody. I had to say no to a weekend out with friends, because my bank role was tired up in Halves.

The worst part about my week was the coin counter going down at the dump bank.

I think I caught a cold from handling so much dirty cash, and then mouthing my hand.

Will45 · Dec 17, 2013

1. A mercury dime http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_dime

2. Not unless they have an S mintmark

50cent · Dec 17, 2013

momandboys said:
Hi,

I thought this would be a fun activity to do this winter on snow days with my two sons. I have read though a lot of posts and get the general idea of what to look for and how to obtain the coins. Two questions that I ponder:

1. What is a merc?
2. Are the 1976 bicentennial quarters worth anything?

Thank you!

dawg, these fools above me are eluding you from the AG. The 1976 S is a 40% silver. if it doesn't have the S, toss it & dump it.

EDIT: CEPT WILL, I DIDNT READ WILLS POST (AT FIRST).

hunts with son · Dec 17, 2013

How common is a 1976 S?

50cent · Dec 17, 2013

hunts with son said:
How common is a 1976 S?

very uncommon. I've never found one and I've searched through $10K+ in quarters.

hunts with son · Dec 17, 2013

Thanks.

Diver_Down · Dec 18, 2013

50cent said:
dawg, these fools above me are eluding you from the AG. The 1976 S is a 40% silver. if it doesn't have the S, toss it & dump it.

EDIT: CEPT WILL, I DIDNT READ WILLS POST (AT FIRST).

Note: Not all San Fran minted bicentennials are silver. There were 40% silver issues in both proof strike and business strike that were issued in a 3 coin set. There also was a proof clad issue.

silverlining · Dec 18, 2013

Hello new stacker! A merc is a Winged cap liberty head dime minted from 1916 to 1945. The bicentennials could be 40% silver if someone is rolling a relatives collection. :nono:

Although that is not normally the case, it is worth face value.

OnARoll · Dec 18, 2013

Welcome!

Dozer D · Dec 18, 2013

Welcome to CRH. I do mostly dimes, and my ratio of Merc's to rosie's is about 1 to 25. Don't just look for Merc's, cuz there's plenty of other odd looking stuff to watch for at the same time. Good luck with the boys hunting, just wish I did this with my kids when they were young, now all are married and too busy for a trivial hobby. Got to get the grandkids interested however.

Once again, after you've found your first couple of silver coins (AG), you are HOOKED.

momandboys · Dec 28, 2013

Thank you all for responding! After reading all the reply's I got so excited that I went to my bank to get half dollars. I took what they had of halves and one dollar coins. They will not order half's for me. 410.00 total in coins. Nothing found, except quarters added to dollar roles and coins decorated with nail polish. I was very disappointed and my hands were stinky afterwards.

So today I went to the bank to put the coins through there machine to count. They jammed up the machine and one of the tellers after several try's ended up counting them by hand. It took about 20 minutes of my time and god only knows how many of my coins were left in the bowels of that counting machine.

I kept all the president dollars coins to collect and will buy a folder for them. Though honestly I am afraid my kids will spend them

The teller gave me a cool coin that was also stuck in the counting machine, an Icelandic coin with a squid on it.

So what should I get next, pennies? Dimes?

With nickels and quarters at least I know that we can collect the states and the national park ones.

The teller was very nice and told me that he gets a lot of steel pennies.

I am definitely done with dollar coins and half dollars are hard to come by here in CT.

SilverFace · Dec 28, 2013

Sorry to hear about your back luck with the short dollar rolls. Nickels and cents can be fun to search because there are a lot of different keepers u can find. I don't hunt quarters too much because I am mostly interested in finding silver when I search quarters and they tend to be the hardest silver coins to find although some people have had some really great success finding silver quarters lately. But if your primarily looking for the states and the national park ones then quarters would be a good choice because u should be able to find a lot of those in nice condition. And that's great if that teller told u he would save steel cents for u. Its always nice having a teller like that to help u with your hunting.

Well good luck and HH!

FormerTeller · Dec 28, 2013

Buy some cent albums (pennies) and have fun filling them up. Be on the lookout for wheat cents, indian heads, and common error coins. If you have the patience, you can make a little money on the side by selling the copper you find. penny rolls there should be between 15% and 30% copper; if you're sorting the coins anyway, you might as well make some $$ by saving cents dated between 1959 and 1981.

Good luck!