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I was talking with a fellow collector yesterday, and they mentioned how banks and stores seem to get more silver coins in change at that time. Anyone else notice that? What drives that, if it's true?

Just the volume of coins turned in for buying gifts and paying end of year bills.

It seems to me that the half dollar bags fill up faster on the coin counters at the end of the year. I would also guess that people turn in their change to purchase gift and such.

I always do better in half dollar coin searching in January.

I think the silver coins showing up in circulation and roll searching comes from Grandmas, kids, and others digging deeper into their old change to buy gifts. People who have collected change all year for Christmas cash them in to be used. I have family who have done both of these.

I think the same types of things happen when the economy does a sharp downturn, like in 2008.

The mint has produced all the needed coins for the year by about August or September. The mint starts up fresh at the beginning of the new year. That is why roll searching in February and March are perennially rolls of brand new coins.

It took several years to realize how annually cyclical the coins are.

My observations, how close to the mark am I?

I too have noticed over the years that the weeks leading up to Christmas are an excellent time to find silver. I think there are people emptying piggy banks and some of those banks were inherited from people who died.

I have always called it Silver Santa! People run short on cash during the holidays so they turn in whatever coins they have laying around.

It could also be more houses being broken into during the holidays and coin jars and other stuff stolen.

hobo finds wrote:It could also be more houses being broken into during the holidays and coin jars and other stuff stolen.

That’s looking on the bright side . Probably true .

Everyone watching? It's that time again

I haven't found any silver but strangely enough I have found more change on the ground in the last 2 weeks than in the last 3-4 months! Dimes and pennies mostly but it all goes into the jar.

silverflake wrote:I haven't found any silver but strangely enough I have found more change on the ground in the last 2 weeks than in the last 3-4 months! Dimes and pennies mostly but it all goes into the jar.

Because things are going back to "normal" and people are wasting again

Don’t forget New Year’s resolutions! Many people vow to do a better job managing their finances. They may want to get a start on that resolution by cashing in piggy bank money.

Recyclersteve wrote:Don’t forget New Year’s resolutions! Many people vow to do a better job managing their finances. They may want to get a start on that resolution by cashing in piggy bank money.

Oohhhh, good call!

A mere three days after my post on this thread I happened to get 2 silver dollars (1878-O and 1925 plain) at a bank. This is the second time recently, following getting 3 silver dollars at a different bank on 11/1/22. Before that I had NEVER ONCE gotten silver dollars at a bank in over 50 years of collecting. See additional details on a separate thread posted today.

Looks like it might be happening yet again, as Cu Penny Hoarder scored a silver quarter in self checkout change!

When I was still avidly penny searching, I would go to the bank this time of year to get pennies and when I would ask "Do you have any rolls of pennies?" they would laugh. They'd answer "We have penny rolls, nickel rolls, dime rolls...you name it!" Why? Because people cashing in anything in order to pay for Christmas.

Thats also when I would find those dimes inside of penny rolls.

Oh well. Stack what you can.

We can speculate and be hopeful this time of year, but I have some hard numbers to share regarding my silver half dollar finds. And, yes, I am contradicting my wishful thinking when I posted on 1/20 (above).

My Excel spreadsheet goes back to May, 2004, so a bit over 20 years and contains 2120 lines of data (in other words half dollars were picked up over 100 times per year). Just for what it is worth, I found a total of 2,965 silver halves (2,436 were 40%ers).

Just for grins-
9/22/23- I was able to get a total of 42 silver halves (all 40%ers) from 4 different banks in the same general area- not 4 different bank branches but totally different banks- wonder if someone stole halves and was looking to cash them in.

9/18/12- I know- a whopping 12 years ago, BUT that day I got 27 silver halves (only 2- 90%ers) from 7 different banks on the same day! This was a day when I was traveling to rural parts of my state up to about 150 miles from home. One of the silver finds was from a casino. Wowser.

Here are the results by month. What I did was list the number of times when I got 10 or more silvers from the same bank location on a single trip.

JAN 5
FEB 1
MAR 1
APR 1
MAY 5
JUN 2
JUL 5
AUG 4
SEP 2
OCT 4
NOV 5
DEC 3

So I had good days every month of the year. Other than Feb-April being slower I don't see anything statistically significant during the other months of the year. Sorry about that.

I've had the opposite result. When asking to buy halves from the tellers they tell me they are plumb out because older folks have asked for them to give to grandchildren.

Still, to OP's point, there are more of them in circulation. Happy hunting.

At least if we're getting these coins, you know they haven't been melted yet!