My quest to find a silver half dollar

[TwoAndAHalfCents]

Over the past year of searching off and on for silver halves I have not found a single one. I have picked up small batches here and there for a total of about $600 searched for the year. Surely I would have found at least one during that time. Today I decided to step up my efforts and finally find a silver half dollar out there.

First thing this morning I stopped at a bank that I do not have an account with and asked if they had any halves. They had $70 in CWRs for me. My next stop was at another bank that I don't have an account with. The teller there went back to the vault and found $100 in bank wrapped rolls and she was so happy that I bought them all and got them out of the vault for her. My next stop was at a branch of my own bank. Someone had come in on Friday and cleaned them out of all of their halves. Hmmm... another sorter in the area. I went to another branch of my bank and they had halves. Someone had recently dropped off $1,000 worth. The coins were in machine rolls that had been opened up on one end and then folded back over to close. "How many do you want?", the teller asked. I bought a few of the rolls and thanked the teller for having halves available but no way was I going to pick up the entire dump of another sorter. Another branch of my bank had about $200 in CWRs which I got. They also had about $1,500 worth that they were in the middle of emptying into bags to ship off for processing and they said they couldn't sell any of them to me. I could see behind the teller the boxes and the rewrapped machine rolls that they were processing and it was definitely a dump that someone had already sorted. Thankfully I avoided getting any of those. A third branch also had about $1,500 that they wanted to get rid of. More rewrapped machine rolls that someone dumped. I only picked up a few there to stay on good terms with the branch and they did have one CWR too. Besides these three dump banks that I stumbled upon, I found a number of banks that actually had rolls of halves available. In the end I wound up with over $1,500 in halves to sort. All I had to do was start asking for them. The banks are glad to get rid of them.

So far I have only sorted the first $400 of the batch and I have already found silver. One roll had a 1964, 1965, and 1966 all nearly uncirculated plus a moderately circulated 1967. Another roll had a dirty 1964 in it. Another had 13 NIFC halves from 2002 to 2007. In less than one box worth I have already found five silver halves. I am really looking forward to sorting the rest. There is even a long $20 roll in there. I hope that one is a good one. I haven't seen a CWR like that before.

[Rastatodd]

I'd say you have done quit well. From being skunked to hitting the silver promise land of sorts. Congratulations on your finds.

[BlackOut]

Persistence is key

[rexmerdinus]

$20 roll is old-school. I think that's the first one I'd have opened, probably in the bank parking lot!

[agmoose]

Congrats, may 2013 be filled with lots more!

[Numis Pam]

Way to go! I have found a few in years past but have not searched halfs in awhile.

[TwoAndAHalfCents]

The $20 roll was a skunk. But out of the entire batch of $1,500 I found 18 silver total (3 - 90% and 15 - 40%). There was also more than a roll of NIFC halves. I haven't decided if those are worth keeping but the batch included each of the dates and mint marks through 2007. It looks like someone's collection was rolled up and sent to the bank.

[Numis Pam]

The $20 roll was a skunk. But out of the entire batch of $1,500 I found 18 silver total (3 - 90% and 15 - 40%). There was also more than a roll of NIFC halves. I haven't decided if those are worth keeping but the batch included each of the dates and mint marks through 2007. It looks like someone's collection was rolled up and sent to the bank.

What are NIFC halves? I am not familar with it....

[Engineer]

The $20 roll was a skunk. But out of the entire batch of $1,500 I found 18 silver total (3 - 90% and 15 - 40%). There was also more than a roll of NIFC halves. I haven't decided if those are worth keeping but the batch included each of the dates and mint marks through 2007. It looks like someone's collection was rolled up and sent to the bank.

What are NIFC halves? I am not familar with it....

NIFC = Not Intended For Circulation

[mtldealer]

Congrats. Hopefully you don't get any of my dumps... I dump in bags.