Its been a good week for my hobbies!
1) Added a great deal of weapons work to the Kung Fu studies, my oldest daughter did too
2) Received my first "fancy" bourbon (many thanks to HOF44!) and will taste test this evening or maybe tomorrow.
3) Found a few more pre-1964 silver coins and my Dad called last night to tell me he found a 1878 Silver Morgan from the Carson City Mint in what he claims as perfect condition and in its original sleeve from the mint. (found it in my deceased granddad's safe)
You know what a good way to get coins to go through is? Ask your bank for a box, or customer wrapped rolls. I know Wells Fargo, Bank Of America, BB&T and Navy Federal don't have a problem selling anyone (even non customers) a box of coins if they ask politely.
Boxes are priced as follows, and you only pay face value....
Pennies $25
Nickels $100
Dimes $250
Quarters $500
Don't waste your time with nickels, because the value on nickels in non existent unless you get a rare one or a war nickel (40% silver for 3 years). Buffalo nickels are cool, but you almost never find them in circulation, and the value is low, because you will never find a rare buffalo.
Pennies are great, because the cost is super low, and if you buy any of the various Lincoln cent resource books, you will quickly find out a lot of them are worth a lot of money. I've made hundreds from pennies I found in bank boxes.
Dimes and quarters are easy to search a box, because you won't be finding any non silver ones that are worth anything, so rather than individually sort, you just bust open a roll, and look at the edges. A silver one will jump out immediately, because the edge looks white and the non silver looks brown from the copper.
Going this route is optimal if you have a Navy Fed account, because you can just keep want you want, and dump the rest into the machine in their lobby free of charge, and it goes straight into your account. Never use Coinstar, you'll go broke. But ALWAYS look in the return change bin on every Coinstar you walk by, because the machines reject silver, and I have found more silver coins in Coinstar machines than anywhere.
Another good piece of advice, is to go to your bank and ask them if they have customer wrapped rolls of dimes or quarters, and buy however many you want. These can be silver rich, because typically only older people roll coins, and they don't filter out the silver. I once got a full roll of silver dimes, and a full roll of proof dimes from the same transaction. What cost me $20 I turned right around and sold for $200. Also, every single time you go to the bank, ask them if anyone has brought in rolls or single of dollar coins or half dollars. The answer is no 75% of the time, but when they have them, the odds of them being silver is about 100%. I got a 1908 Barber half from the bank last week doing this.
Fair warning though, if you start going this route to find silver, it will be far more rewarding, but you will come to despise weekends with a passion. If you try it, you'll see what I mean. No open banks will make your weekend depressing