New to collecting

[ardorlan]

It is amazing how my point of views have changed since reading this forum.
I am 29 year old, Family man with 2 children, a supportive wife, and work as a network engineer.

I started coin collecting recently, stockpiling 100$ face value nickel boxes, waiting for the nickel 25%/copper 75% to be removed from common circulation before selling. I wished my farther would have stockpile silver coins from the 60's when he was my age, and I think its pretty clear that history is repeating itself.

I am just wondering did people back in 1960 think silver is as cheap as people in 2010 think copper is?

I've been wanting to invest in real estate and bags of junk silver coins, My wife is a believer in real estate but with Junk Silver Coin bags going for about 2,600, She doesn't see that as a real investment more just hording. I also have a small amount invested in bitcoins.

I am glad that I can get junk silver coins through searching boxes of Halfs, I have contracted 4 banks that are willing to work with account holders to get boxes, and I have open 1 accounted and ordered 1x $500 box of halfs per week.

From a newbie point of view, its best to call them over the phone and ask to talk to the vault teller and say "I want to play a change order.. $500 box of halfs"

My goal is to get 1x $500 box of halfs from six different banks per week for 2 months and keep good records.

I have already found a dump bank, and I have dumped $196 in Halfs it was painless, but I am worried they are going to give me crap when I start bring 3k a week through their.

I will be reporting my finds in another post once I have my coins in front of me as I know you like to know the dates. So far though, I have searched a total of 272.50 returning 5 silver halfs, and I think one proof from 1999, I am going down to my local coin shop to ask him later this week.

[Country]

WELCOME to RealCent...

Dump banks - find a number dump bank branches to spread your dumps around. I try to rotate my dumps amongst the branches.

Source banks - work with the head teller in person. Let them get to know you. After you have slowly built up your relationship with your source bank, you will find it easy to increase your coin order (within limits that you will figure out over time). NEVER use your source bank as a dump bank - they want the coins you get to go away....

I was a teenager in 1960. However, the SILVER was worth more than face around 1963 and coins began to disappear (saved or melted) from circulation, and by 1964 LBJ had planned to remove the SILVER from the coinage because at that time SILVER was considered a strategic metal (note that while the changeover occured in 1965, the mint continued to mint SILVER coins with the 1964 date until as late as 1966 because the clad mintage facilities were not ready). I think folks back then were more attuned to SILVER back then. From about the mid-60s, SILVER coins were saved in earnest once the public knew about and saw the changeover in the coinage. My mother once expressed to me that the new coinage in 1965 onwards was "play money". These days except for RealCent-like people, the American public has no clue of what metal is in their coinage. I tried to explain to some close friends that there were COPPER pennies and ZINC pennies. They appeared very confused at the notion that there were Real-cents and Zinc cents. A small group of smart folks are removing the last of the available SILVER, COPPER, and stockpiling nickels these days.

Good luck in your searches....

[scrapper2010]

Welcome to the forum. It looks like you're already on the right track. Post your finds in the tracking threads section of the forum. Monthly tallies are kept there.

[NHsorter]

Good job on the halves! 5 Silvers in under 300FV searched is impressive. I hope those percentages hold up for you. I have searched over a dozen boxes in the past few months and I have only come up with about 4 silver coins and a couple of clad proofs.

[Josh]

Welcome to the group, and great silver find. I'm thinking about starting to save nickles also, but I'm just not for sure how many is to many.
I'm thinking about just trying to save maybe around 5 boxes. What's your goal on how many to save?

[beauanderos]

Welcome to the group, and great silver find. I'm thinking about starting to save nickles also, but I'm just not for sure how many is to many.
I'm thinking about just trying to save maybe around 5 boxes. What's your goal on how many to save?

Welcome to the Forum. Hey nickel sorters... I have several bricks socked away, never looked at them. Can you edge check for the war nicks... or do you have to examine each one individually?

[ardorlan]

I think its a question of how much cash you want to keep on hand.

I believe there is seizurer issues with having more then $10,000?

Banks do not like "Cash" when it comes to using it as a down payment for a mortgage, but you can usually work around this with the correct documention.

My goal has always been to have $20,000 in Liquid savings, I feel having more then 20,000 in nonperforming assets is a bit silly, However it is EASY to Argue that metals are preforming assets. Surely 100$ in Silver is going to be better then 100$ cash bill.

Its easy enough to trade Silver and Gold in, or even nickels for face value so these are liquid.
I want to have $10,000 in my bank savings account, and $10,000 in metal in my house, 20% of that being nickels. (so 2,000 face value nickels)

One of the high uses of copper these days at least from my point of view is in electronics and computer wire. They are working on treating aluminum with chemicals to make it a metal that can be used for electronics and computer network cabling. this could change copper prices if they can get it to work.

[anarchir]

Hoarding metals is nice, but hoarding bitcoins is like hoarding FRN's. Bitcoins are created as a unit of trade not really an investment.

[ardorlan]

The only reason I got into bitcoin is my wife needed a new video card, So I am working on getting the video card to pay for itself, but my projections showing it only returning 80% of the video cards value, so I am taking a loss of 20% or getting an 80% discount on a video card, depending on how you look at it.

[ardorlan]

Got a phone call today, My first ever box of halves is at the bank waiting to be picked up
Told him I would be right there.

Its pretty heavy wouldn't want to carry them 2 at a time, but today I only have one.
sort the first 250$ with nothing. was getting tired, so the 2nd 250$ I rim sorted and nothing.

I still have 2 more boxes of halves I should be getting from other banks, US Bank said they order this box from the fed, I am going to try dumping half of this tomorrow morning at my dump bank on my way to work.

I posted my finds and sunks on the tracking thread.

[beauanderos]

I posted my finds and sunks on the tracking thread.

We prefer to call them "skunks," newbie

[ardorlan]

Just picked up my 2nd box of halves hopefully its not an skunk

[ardorlan]

Today I open my 4th box of halves after having first 3 as skunk boxes, and one week of my bank "forgetting?" to order my halves. This 4th box is the first to yield silver to the tune of 6x 40%ers. Money is tight right now due to closing on the house and if this was yet another skunk I may have given up this hobby, Now as soon as I get some extra Cash, I plan to upgrade to 2x $500USD boxes per week, as I am currently doing 1 box/week.

[scrapper2010]

See how a little silver gets you hooked? You were ready to give up, but then six 40%'s later and you're doubling your order. NIce score.

[ardorlan]

I don't understand what it is about silver (and I am sure gold too..) but I just like to hold it in my hand and watch the light shine off of it. let my mind drift like a silver induce day dream. Ooo shiny

[Treetop]

I don't understand what it is about silver (and I am sure gold too..) but I just like to hold it in my hand and watch the light shine off of it. let my mind drift like a silver induce day dream. Ooo shiny

youll NEVER catch me doing that....

[Steel Talon]

I've never had much success searching halves, I search 25 rolls every two weeks then go grocery shopping with them. and have found a total of3 64,and 4 65-69.. I have no idea what to do to improve my odds. The rolls I get are white paper with black striped rims. Ive had more success with he tellers at my bank watching what comes in for me.

I tend to be more successful with nickle rolls pre 60's lots of war nickles and several Indian Head nickles, usually from the clear plastic tubes rolls.