The confessions of a coin-roller

Ever since joining Numista a few months ago, I've been escalating my hobby: from buying cherry-picked bulk lots on ebay to hunting through the bargain bins at coin shows to, finally, doing ungodly amount of coin roll hunting.

A month ago, I ordered and received $1,000 of coins from my local bank: $500 in half-dollars and $500 in nickels. Turns out nickels are ridiculously heavy when there are 10,000 of them haha.

I went through the half-dollars in one evening, while watching random stand-up comedy specials on Netflix. (You don't even need to watch them that closely - doing it with one eye is enough.) From that batch, I found 7 silver JFK's (two 90% ones from 1964, five 40% ones from 1965-70) and two coins made after 2001. 2001 was the last year they were minted for circulation - everything after that went to the collector sets, so finding one in the wild is rare and a little valuable. I think the catalog value for those is $1.00-$1.50.

The nickels were a different story. There were 10 times more nickels than half-dollars, so it's taken way longer, but I'm almost done sorting through the last $100 box. I was mostly looking out for buffalo nickels, as well as some rare year/mint combinations (see below). Surprisingly, I've found only three buffalo nickels: two were so damaged that the year was impossible to determine, and I've released them back into the wild. The third one was a 1936 in a fairly decent shape. Found ~10 silver WW2 nickels, though, which is a little weird. Granted, they have just 1.75 grams of silver ($0.89 worth), but it was still strange to find more of them than the buffalo nickels. The working hypothesis is that most people have no idea the WW2 nickels were different: since the buffaloes are easier to spot, they end up getting removed from the circulation at a higher rate. Oh well, more WW2 coins for me. (I hoard every coin minted during WW2 - a minor passion of mine.)

Alas, the local bank came up with a flimsy, mumbled excuse as to why they couldn't order any extra coins for me. Fortunately, there's another bank just two blocks away from my work! I ordered a $500 box of half-dollars from them last week, got it today, and sorted through them in just three hours while watching coin-related videos on youtube. (Synergy! )

This lot was way, way more lucky: found two post-2001 JFK's, three 40% silver JFKs from 1967-68, one 90% silver JFK from 1946, four (!!!) Franklin half-dollars from 1956-1962, and a Walking Liberty half-dollar from 1944.

Given that I've never owned any Franklin half-dollars or the Walking Liberty half-dollar, this is an amazing find. Altogether, tonight's nine silver coins have 81.3 grams (or 2.6oz) of silver, but their catalog value is higher than that, and the sentimental value for me personally is higher yet.

What about the rest of you? Got any coin-rolling successes (or epic fails) that you would care to share?

Coins I watch out for:
Pretty much just the years and mints - I'm not very good at spotting minor differences in error coins.

Nickels:
Buffalo nickels
1939-D
1942-1945 War nickels
1950-D
1954-S, S Over D
1955-D, D Over S
1971 No-S Proof
1979-S Type 2 (Clear “S”) Proof
1981-S Type 2 (Clear “S”) Proof
1982-P
1990 D without initials
1994-P Special Uncirculated
1997-P Special Uncirculated
2009 (very low mintage - oddly enough, I haven't found a single 2009 nickel after going through almost 10,000 of them!)

Half-dollars:
All the half-dollars made through 1964 are 90% silver.
1964 JFK - the only JFK half-dollar with 90% silver
1965-70 JFK half-dollars - 40% silver
1976 JFK bicententennial - some of the ones with "S" are 40% silver. The easiest way to tell them apart is by looking at the rim (white is good, red is bad) and listening for that special "clink"
2002 and later - non-circulation JFKs, much rarer and a bit more valuable than the $0.50 face value

I got a lot of boxes with all 2016 or 2017 coins. More than I want to admit, actually.

Other times I got 20+ silver halves in one box, but that is not as often as number one.

You win some, you lose some

I did a lot of roll hunting ten years ago. It was a huge amount of work for very little reward. I found some older coins from time to time, but I get more silver from CoinStar machines than I did from rolls.

Americans are lucky to have rolls and CoinStar machines.

Quote: "druzhynets"​Americans are lucky to have rolls and CoinStar machines.
​

​They really are.

Quote: "MonaSeaclaid"​

Quote: "druzhynets"​Americans are lucky to have rolls and CoinStar machines.
​​

​​They really are.

Are they ever...​

How did you order this from the bank? When I ordered from the bank, they ordered it from the Fed and it had nothing good in it and was actually one coin short! It cost me 50 cent to go through $1000 in halves

What bank? And if it's that good why not order $10,000 at a time?

Sounds like a really nice hunt. I'd love to get the opportunity to coin roll hunt US coins since they're one of my main interest. Shame I live in Romania where doing that is impossible.

Quote: "redsmithstudios"​How did you order this from the bank? When I ordered from the bank, they ordered it from the Fed and it had nothing good in it and was actually one coin short! It cost me 50 cent to go through $1000 in halves
​
​What bank? And if it's that good why not order $10,000 at a time?

​​I have an account with Wells Fargo, so I just walked in and asked very politely - that's all it took. :)

The way they explained it, they order cash and coins once a week to make sure they have enough quarters, dollar bills, etc. They just add my coin request and call/email me when it arrives a week or two later. I don't want to get on their bad side, which is why I've only been asking for $500-1,000 lots. Pretty sure they got their coins from the regional distribution center and not the mint - otherwise all the nickels would have been 2017 mintage. (Just guessing here.)

And don't give up! Statistically speaking, it's possible to go through $500 in half-dollars and find only one silver coin. Just keep trying - the silver is still out there!

To all the non-US folks: I understand your envy, but I envy you too! You have soooo many fun foreign coins all around you. Here in the States, you can only find an occasional Canadian coin - you need to go online or to coin dealers/shows to get any foreign coinage. (In my mind's eye, there are tons of awesome foreign coins at every European flea market haha)

I worked for a time in a bank and it was a great opportunity to go through rolls of halves, quarters and dimes. While doing so I got a pretty good amount of silver coins. I have also had luck asking at small banks when I see half dollars around. I was in a small town in Vermont on vacation and saw the teller had some halves so I asked if I could go through them. She was happy to let me have a look and had a bunch of rolls in back too. I probably walked away with 10 or so that were silver (a mix of 40% and 90%). Overall it is a lot of fun when you can do it!

I do coin roll hunting every couple weeks. Order C$200 worth of Twoonies, loonies and quarters. I look for commemoratives to fill my swap list. I've occasionally found a silver quarter too. From my POV, US coins are absolutely banal. You do have the commemorative quarters now, but otherwise, its really boring stuff. But that's just my opinion. Happy to stay north of the border numismatic wise :)

Quote: "Platypus"​To all the non-US folks: I understand your envy, but I envy you too! You have soooo many fun foreign coins all around you. Here in the States, you can only find an occasional Canadian coin - you need to go online or to coin dealers/shows to get any foreign coinage. (In my mind's eye, there are tons of awesome foreign coins at every European flea market haha)

​Yeah, that's true. My local mall hosts a flea market once a month and if the 1-2 coin dealers that I usually buy from are there I can find a huge variety of foreign coins from all over Europe. :)

Quote: "Platypus"​To all the non-US folks: I understand your envy, but I envy you too! You have soooo many fun foreign coins all around you.

​Europeans have another advantage.... age. In the Americas, our coinage hardly starts before 1600. No ancients or medieval coinage at all. Finding coins from pre-1930s is challenging enough. I see European users with medieval hammered coins for swap, and realize I'll never have a coin that old to spare.

Quote: "Cerulean"​

Quote: "Platypus"​To all the non-US folks: I understand your envy, but I envy you too! You have soooo many fun foreign coins all around you.

​​Europeans have another advantage.... age. In the Americas, our coinage hardly starts before 1600. No ancients or medieval coinage at all. Finding coins from pre-1930s is challenging enough. I see European users with medieval hammered coins for swap, and realize I'll never have a coin that old to spare.

plus we also have commemorative € 2,- coins if you live in the Eurozone, the only reason I don't come across silver coins anymore is because of the Euro, back in the Guilder days I found silver Juliana coins every other day.​

Quote: "Cerulean"​

Quote: "Platypus"​To all the non-US folks: I understand your envy, but I envy you too! You have soooo many fun foreign coins all around you.

​​Europeans have another advantage.... age. In the Americas, our coinage hardly starts before 1600. No ancients or medieval coinage at all. Finding coins from pre-1930s is challenging enough. I see European users with medieval hammered coins for swap, and realize I'll never have a coin that old to spare.

​Totally agree! Here in the US, at a coin show there might and might not be only one or two foreign dealers, all the rest is the same US stuff, which i dont collect. So i can go to a huge coin show, and come away competely disapointed because there where no foreign bargain bins or dealers.

When I was youngster, we used to toss quarters in high ball glasses.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Got some interesting updates:
The bank near my work is apparently pretty cool! They'll order $1,000 in half-dollars for me - I'd just have to carry out those 50 lbs out of there haha. They should have it delivered sometime around January 14th, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to it.

Apparently, there's a huge community of coin roll hunters (or CRH, as they call it) out there. There's a very active Reddit subforum, as well as a Coin Roll Hunting subforum on a giant and very impressive message board dedicated to all kinds of treasure hunting. (Why do I feel like my 2018 will have the Indiana Jones soundtrack?.. )

Either people don't post their best finds on either of those message boards, or I really did get incredibly lucky with my last $500 box of half-dollars. (The one with multiple Franklins and the WW2 Walking Liberty half-dollar.) Either way, I'll take it! ...for contrast, a guy on Reddit said he went through $3,500 in half-dollars and found just a single JFK half-dollar. Ye gods.

Stay tuned for updates - and may your coin-hunting bring you tons of shiny rare coins in this new year.