Which silver coin is the most profitable to hunt? My conclusions.

[cyberdan]

I hope I can word this logically. First I am a bean counter, I sit in front of a computer all day and crunch numbers. So, wanting to know how much REAL profit that can be made CRHing is a logical question for me.

I wrote a spreadsheet to determine which coin would be the best to hunt for, profitwise and the lowly war nickel won, hands down!

Here is how I figured it out based on todays silver spot rate of $12.78oz. (everything is based on selling at full silver value, which we all know will never happen) The profit is after the face value cost of the coin is deducted.

1 war nickel profit is .67 cents
1 silver dime profit is .82 cents
1 silver quarter profit is $2.06
1 40% Kennedy half $1.39

Extending this to compare with one 40% Kennedy half.
2 war nickels profit is $1.34
2 silver dimes profit is $1.65
1 silver quarter profit is $2.06
1 40% Kennedy half $1.39

Comparing it with 50 cents face value of coin will make a nickel hunter out of you.
10 war nickels profit is $6.70
5 silver dimes profit is $4.12
2 silver quarters profit is $4.12
1 40% Kennedy half $1.39

But then I have to think of the real world. Kennedy's are so much easier to hunt and the likelyhood of finding a keeper is so much greater, I am still going to hunt Kennedies.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A History of Mining on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska - Grab it through Amazon!

[goldinmypan]

You also have to take into consideration that halves are easier on old eyes.

The other thing that you left out is the 90% halves.

 

[cyberdan]

You also have to take into consideration that halves are easier on old eyes.

The other thing that you left out is the 90% halves.

I agree these old eyes arn't what they used to be either. (but I still don't have to put my glasses on to see the alarm clock at night or renew my drivers license )

I didn't do the 90% halves because I find the 40% much more frequently (so far 31-90% & 60-40%)

I am not going to stop half hunting but I may add nickle hunting to my list.

 

[RaptorSE]

How many War nickels would it take to make a profit of say $3,000 ?

I see the profitability of war nickels, and I love it ! I just dont think I
could find enough in a lifetime to equal the silver found in 6 months of other
denominations.

Then again, I have never found a war nickel period !!! LOL. I think I may start searching
some boxes however, I think I need to aquire me some of those

 

[cyberdan]

How many War nickels would it take to make a profit of say $3,000 ?

It would take 4481 war nickels to make a $3000 profit.

I have only bought one box of nickels and found one.

So that means, with that average of one per box you will need to spend $448,100 on nickels and if you can search one box everynight, in 12 years and a month +/- you will have made your goal.

lets hear it for halves. (it would only take 728 90% halves to make $3000 profit)

 

[GMan00001]

The problem with nickels is that they only produced silver ones for 4 years: 1942-1945

With dimes, quarters, and halves is that they were produced for so many more years.


Okay, here's some numbers to consider regarding half dollars. I'll try not to ramble on too badly.

The US minted 869,923,700 Silver War Nickels which if all Jefferson Nickels were still in circulation today (none were removed) would be only 1.9% of the Jefferson Nickels.

By comparison, the US minted 1,282,355,218 Silver Kennedy Half Dollars which if all Kennedy Half Dollars were still in circulation today would be 31.5% of the Kennedy Half Dollars found. And that doesn't include the Franklins, Walkers, or Barbers.

Based on some search results from 2006 that were posted on this site, I calculated that the percentage of 90% Kennedys remaining in circulation is about 2.33% and the 40% Kennedys is about 4.77% of the total minted.

The total number of Kennedy Half Dollars minted from 1964-2001 is roughly 4,068,075,147. (There were some minted in 2002-present and some proof set coins but the numbers are low and they weren't issued for circulation so those were ignored.) Assuming that all non-silver Kennedys are still in circulation, subtract off the silver Kennedys removed from circulation from that total and you get 2,836,345,992 half dollars still in circulation.

The 2.33% of the 90% Kennedys is roughly 10,137,156 left in circulation.
The 4.77% of the 40% Kennedys is roughly 40,488,907 left in circulation.
This totals 50,626,063 Silver Kennedys left in circulation.

50,626,063 / 2,836,345,992 = 1.78% chance of finding a silver Kennedy Half Dollar every time you get one.

This is roughly what the Silver war nickels would be if NONE were removed from circulation, and we all know that's not true.

Key Notes:
1) I did not take into account Franklins, Walkers, etc that are also silver so the percentage is actually higher for half dollars.
2) I did not take into account Buffalo or V nickels, which are not silver, so the percentage is actually lower for nickels.
3) There are also foreign coins included in almost any box of nickels I get which reduces the percentage slightly, haven't found as many in the half dollar rolls I have searched.
4) The accuracy of the silver half dollars in circulation is dependent on the search result statistics reported and may be off some.
5) We also know that not all clad half dollars are in circulation, so the percentage of silver half dollars should go up, in theory, but hard to quantify how much at this time.

Basically, your odds of finding a Silver Kennedy Half Dollar now are roughly as good taking into account all the half dollars already removed from circulation as your odds of finding a war nickel if all war nickels were still in circulation.

 

[Immy]

Those are good stats GMan and probably about as reliable an estimate as can be determined. I'll also add that the percentages you list can be further reduced, though slightly, by silver coins lost, already in collections, made into jewelry, etc. And let's not forget melts. By 1970 the Mint had melted over a half billion dimes and 1.5 billion quarters.

 

[bazinga]

Very nice information to read!

I'm another one of those people that enjoys analyzing numbers and occurrences.

Keep it up!

 

[RaptorSE]

Agreed - Thanks Gman !

Again, you provide excellent stats on the topic at hand. /bow

I'll be the first to nominate Gman as "worker of the year for the CRH'rs"

Cant wait to see how long that "tracking" thread gets by the end of the year... haha

Again, great work and its appreciated here by many. Take care.

Cyberdan - cool info as well. Thats alot of War nickels /gasp Not sure I can get as
"into" them as the halves, but Im gonna try it. I at least want to find a few for my
collection.

 

[GMan00001]

Those are good stats GMan and probably about as reliable an estimate as can be determined. I'll also add that the percentages you list can be further reduced, though slightly, by silver coins lost, already in collections, made into jewelry, etc. And let's not forget melts. By 1970 the Mint had melted over a half billion dimes and 1.5 billion quarters.

Because the numbers came from search results, the coins lost, etc have already been taken into account.


Regarding the tracking work, I was going to do it for my own CRH'ing either way, and I have always wondered what could be found. Keeping up with the tracking thread and adding the everyone else's finds isn't all that much extra work as I read all the posts already, just a matter of noting the finds that are new and updating the both the thread and the spreadsheet I have at home which gives the percentages. Things have already started to slow down. For example, the Jefferson nickels are already down to the proofs, war nickels, and a few key/semi-key dates and its only mid January, not many left to update for the rest of the year there.

Besides, I have been CRH'ing by myself with no one to share the stories with for the past year and a half or so. Its nice to find people who share the same/similar interests.

Only wish I had paid more attention to it when I was in college as I used to go to the local casinos all the time. Could have had a ton of stuff (and even though I roughly broke even, I probably would have spent a little less money as well). They even had a half dollar machine back then, too. Oh well, c'est la vie.