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Just checking with everyone to see what their success ratio is in finding silver in rolls.

My experience thru 2010 was quite good- with silver found in about 1 out of 61 coins thru the end of 2010. Then, all of a sudden, things seemed to really dry up. It appears that only once since January 2011 did I ever find 10 or more halves from a trip to the bank.

I used to track everything methodically on an Excel spreadsheet, but things got so bad that I'd take my business cards that I got from the banks and throw then into a box full of papers without even recording it on Excel like I used to. To expound on the business cards, every time I went to a bank I'd write down the amount of face value in halves received, date coins were received, name and location of branch, and silver findings- usually zero.

I was finding silver in about 1 out of 61 halves for several years up til the end of 2010. Approximately 18% of the silver halves found were 90%ers. For the almost three year period since then it has been horrible.

I'm curious as to what everyone thinks is the reason for the sudden drying up of results. I do remember a little over a year ago there was a guy working for a certain company (I'll keep the name to myself) who promised that if you used "5 magic words" when you went into banks, you could get lots of silver for face value. The words were something like "Do you have half dollars?" I noticed things drying up significantly even before his big pitch for "free silver", but I imagine that his pitch made it all that much harder to find silver.

This reminds me of trading technology stocks in the late 1990's, when it was SOOOO easy to make money. Then, shortly after 2000, everything changed in a very big way. You had to work so much harder to make so much less money that lots of people gave up completely.

What has everyone else experienced? Any items that we should be looking at that are more profitable than halves?

(As a final question- time to confess- have you ever gone into a grocery store and seen someone dumping a pile of coins into a Coinstar machine and been determined to be the very first person there after they left? I remember once reading some magazine I didn't care for for about ten minutes just waiting for another person to finish up with their coin dumping...)

What you mean I can go to the bank and ask for silver half dollars?

There's silver in rolls of coins? The heck you say.

Tell me more, I'm intrigued and may give this a try myself.

Maybe I am color blind.....but, they all look silver to me. Except the cents of course.Am missing something here?

I am surprised to this day that the big silver melt of ca. 1980 did not wipe out all the junk silver. I seem to remember a neighbor of mine back then asking me basically to raid my brother's coin collection to pull out the war nickels. LOL. I think he offered $2 for them back then. When silver was topping at a peak near $50, that was some real good money to be made if you could get the junk silver bought for face to sell at spot. Maybe it was not humanly possible to pull the junk silver out of the banks and vaults fast enough? You would of thought banks would of been on that lickety split, especially since banks had not all the huge derivatives and sundry paper trading money-making schemes like they do now. Makes you wonder if the past few years was all that was needed to get people to really get all the silver out of the vaults.

Halves are unpredictable... Dimes are much better in that regard. I get maybe 1.5-2 per box on average. Skunk boxes are rare; big scores are nonexistent (for me so far at least). Halves may be more profitable overall, but I just don't have the patience to go through dozens of boxes without finding anything. It adds up eventually.

I have not not been checking for silver for last couple of years( due to not finding anymore), I was at my bank dumping my zincs and I heard the teller tell some guy that a lady brought some half dollars that her kids no longer wanted. I figured why not and I bought 30 rolls. At least 1 silver half in each roll, i found a total of 6- 90%ers and 33-40%ers. Holidays are near and people tend to bring in more coins to the banks, time to serch for silver again.

Nice snag!!! WTG!

I don't go for boxes of halves. I just pick up small batches of rolls and loose halves at branches when they have them. Usually I get skunked but once in a while a batch of coins from someone's collection turns up. The most recent score was a few weeks back. It was a batch of four customer wrapped rolls with 18 silver (and 17 of those were 90% including a Walking Liberty and a few Franklins).

TwoAndAHalfCents wrote:I don't go for boxes of halves. I just pick up small batches of rolls and loose halves at branches when they have them. Usually I get skunked but once in a while a batch of coins from someone's collection turns up. The most recent score was a few weeks back. It was a batch of four customer wrapped rolls with 18 silver (and 17 of those were 90% including a Walking Liberty and a few Franklins).

dang that's a sweet haul congrats

Recyclersteve wrote:Just checking with everyone to see what their success ratio is in finding silver in rolls.

My experience thru 2010 was quite good- with silver found in about 1 out of 61 coins thru the end of 2010. Then, all of a sudden, things seemed to really dry up. It appears that only once since January 2011 did I ever find 10 or more halves from a trip to the bank.

I used to track everything methodically on an Excel spreadsheet, but things got so bad that I'd take my business cards that I got from the banks and throw then into a box full of papers without even recording it on Excel like I used to. To expound on the business cards, every time I went to a bank I'd write down the amount of face value in halves received, date coins were received, name and location of branch, and silver findings- usually zero.

I was finding silver in about 1 out of 61 halves for several years up til the end of 2010. Approximately 18% of the silver halves found were 90%ers. For the almost three year period since then it has been horrible.

I'm curious as to what everyone thinks is the reason for the sudden drying up of results. I do remember a little over a year ago there was a guy working for a certain company (I'll keep the name to myself) who promised that if you used "5 magic words" when you went into banks, you could get lots of silver for face value. The words were something like "Do you have half dollars?" I noticed things drying up significantly even before his big pitch for "free silver", but I imagine that his pitch made it all that much harder to find silver.

This reminds me of trading technology stocks in the late 1990's, when it was SOOOO easy to make money. Then, shortly after 2000, everything changed in a very big way. You had to work so much harder to make so much less money that lots of people gave up completely.

What has everyone else experienced? Any items that we should be looking at that are more profitable than halves?

(As a final question- time to confess- have you ever gone into a grocery store and seen someone dumping a pile of coins into a Coinstar machine and been determined to be the very first person there after they left? I remember once reading some magazine I didn't care for for about ten minutes just waiting for another person to finish up with their coin dumping...)

I started using those "5 magic words" in the spring of 2014. I wish I had started many years before that. Meanwhile, I started pulling war nickels in 2011. Was averaging one war nickel every 20 rolls (two and a half per box). Had two days that year where I pulled 2 war nickels in a small 5 roll sample. NOW, we fast forward to 2023, and I am averaging ONE war nickel every 75-100 rolls. My best day this year so far was 3 war nickels and it took me something like 90 rolls to get there. I don't search quarters and dimes, but perhaps CWGII can weigh in here and post MODERN DAY ratios.

I do not keep records on them. Just pennies, nickels.

Always figured dimes were 1 in $250-500.

I think I got 1 quarter, ever.
Not funny, but I was supposed to get coin today.
Cannot find my wallet. Tore apart the truck..house.4 hours. .

And just like that..fell out of pants pocket,vunto my shorts..geesh

I don't think I've ever gotten a silver quarter in the wild. Only dimes.

thecrazyone wrote:I don't think I've ever gotten a silver quarter in the wild. Only dimes.

Last 90% quarter I got was in 2006. I still get a 90% dime in my change about once every 2-3 years. No more coinstar finds either, I guess all the people got hip to that and are checking the reject bin when they're done dumping their change.

I think I only ever bought 1 box of halves and maybe 2 boxes of quarters. Just couldn't get half dollars around here. All the cents, nickels and dimes I wanted though.

I always thought dimes were a decent play. They're small and silver goes unnoticed by the Cashless Spending Zombies. Plus, there are a few numi Roosevelts worth sorting for.

Thanks for bringing up this old thread that I created 10 years ago. Wow- I can’t believe it’s been that long!

One thing I did in the past was try to find silver (at least one coin) every month. That streak lasted for several years. Recently, it got to the point where I had to spend ridiculous amounts of time and drive lots of miles to find even a single coin. I was paying myself WAY BELOW minimum wage.

So I realized my time is better spent doing other stuff like working for a real wage and trading in the stock market. I still love going through coins as it is somewhat therapeutic, but I’m not gonna drive way out of my way to go to a bank or Coinstar machine.

I will, however, keep posting finds and the related war stories on this fine site.

I truly love this site. You guys have taught me so much!!

My wife has found more silver in the wild than me in the last 20 years. God bless her! She is well trained (by me!).

Shoot my best silver supply was when I had a paper route in the early 80's. The local paper was $1.90 per week, Thursday was collection day. Some people would give me the rounded $2. But most would throw in an extra quarter tip. Found quite a few quarters. One family would always put out 5 half dollars for me. I never got a 90% but got many many 40% out of them.

Keep it fun guys and keep stacking!

silverflake wrote:Shoot my best silver supply was when I had a paper route in the early 80's.

I shudder to think how much silver coin frittered through my 12 year-old fingers when I had my first paper route in 1970.

I was born in 1960. My dad put his change in a bank, shaped like a house, with a bird bath on a pedestal. Once a month we would sit down to roll it.
Back then the bankers hours were 10-3. I have vague memories of being lifted to sit on the counter and give the teller my change. No bank bags for us, crown royal ruled. It also contained my bank book.

Any wheat , or silver went into old coffee mug.then once a year ,at Xmas time,
Dad would help me look at the ,blue books. It was only when I got a little older ,did I realize that he,,,salted,, the coins. 3 cent nickels were my favorite.

Ah, simpler times.

cwgii wrote:I was born in 1960. My dad put his change in a bank, shaped like a house, with a bird bath on a pedestal. Once a month we would sit down to roll it.
Back then the bankers hours were 10-3. I have vague memories of being lifted to sit on the counter and give the teller my change. No bank bags for us, crown royal ruled. It also contained my bank book.

Any wheat , or silver went into old coffee mug.then once a year ,at Xmas time,
Dad would help me look at the ,blue books. It was only when I got a little older ,did I realize that he,,,salted,, the coins. 3 cent nickels were my favorite.

Ah, simpler times.

Salted the coins? What do you mean by this?

Recyclersteve wrote:

cwgii wrote:I was born in 1960. My dad put his change in a bank, shaped like a house, with a bird bath on a pedestal. Once a month we would sit down to roll it.
Back then the bankers hours were 10-3. I have vague memories of being lifted to sit on the counter and give the teller my change. No bank bags for us, crown royal ruled. It also contained my bank book.

Any wheat , or silver went into old coffee mug.then once a year ,at Xmas time,
Dad would help me look at the ,blue books. It was only when I got a little older ,did I realize that he,,,salted,, the coins. 3 cent nickels were my favorite.

Ah, simpler times.

Salted the coins? What do you mean by this?

Maybe he meant seeded.

I think he meant SORTED

In this context, "salted" means to add valuables to a mix, to misdirect someone from the mix's actual, lesser value.

Salting a mining site is an old trick to make samples be a higher grade than the actual ore or placer.