Surprising Bag Contents

[cunick]

I bought my first bag of halves yesterday from my bank's counting machine. The contents surprised me, not from the silver content, but from the unrelated items in the bag. The bag contained $997.50 in clad halves, and $1.00 in 40% halves.

But, in addition to the halves, the bag contained the following US coins, totalling $10.23:
1- Sacajawea Dollar
30- quarters
6- Dimes
7- Nickels
18- Pennies

In addition to the US coinage, the bag had a Canadian penny, a coin from Israel with a "5" on it, and a single edge razor blade.

Fortunately, I saw the razor blade before sticking my hand in the bag!

I am curious about whether such strange contents are rare, or if this bag was within the norm.

[cunick]

I just checked the coin from Israel, and it is Five Shekels. According to the site I was looking at, it has an exchange rate of $1.38 US. Now, the question is melt value!

[Dumpster Diver]

Crazy stuff almost always shows up in bags...much more fun than boxes.

$10.23 is like getting a 90% half!

[jasmatk]

if you have ever counted then machine dumped you will see the counter is off injoy the goodies///watch out for those razors

[slickeast]

Bags are interesting. I have found just about every other denomination coin while searching bags. Along with a guitar pick, paperclip, Canadian coins, and tokens. They have been better at yielding silver than boxes. Gotta take the good with the weird.

[misteroman]

I need to try and find bags and see if i can get anything good

[Lemon Thrower]

not surprising although on the interesting end of the spectrum of what is typical.

its not unusual at all to have several smaller denomination coins or to have more than $1000 in FV.

most people who buy bags don't dump via machines because they understand how machines can be off.

[hirbonzig]

Some of the best stuff I ever found was in a bag of half dollars. In April I found a very worn 1801 large cent mixed in with the silver and clad! I wonder how a razor blade made it thru the counting machine? I would think it would get snagged in the machine. Next time I get a bag of coins I'll dump them out on the floor first before I let my kids help me search.

[slickeast]

LT, the machine I dump my halves in has not shorted me yet. Been using it for 2 years. When it had no limit I dumped 2000.00 many times when I was skunked and it was dead on. Now that there is a 300.00 a day limit I dump 295.00 at a time and it is always right.

When I dump pennies on the other hand, the ticket always shows other coins on it, so I usually make a small profit