Noob in the house

[A.Romeo]

This is my first time venturing over to the NGC-NCS forums. I'm usually only in the comic book section. I became curious as to how often someone finds a rare or valuable coin just from regular everyday change? Does it happen? Are all the rare coins already in collectors hands? I bring this up because I keep a coin jar and every few month I dump them coins out, roll them up and keep them all in a stash. Have been doing this for about 2 years now and pretty soon I'll be able to take a nice vacation with the fiance. When i was going through my coins, this was the first time I started looking at them, I found a few older coins but nothing extreme, just old. A 1939 penny and two others were from the 50's I believe one of them being a nickel. I went to the PCGS website to do a little research but its really hard to follow if you don't know what your looking for and I definitely don't.

 

Anyway it just got me thinking of all the collectors on here, and was curious if anyone has ever kept a coin jar that they would throw money into and found something valuable? I love hearing stories like that! Thanks all!

[bsshog40]

I have a 5 gal bottle that I keep dimes, nickels, qtrs, a few halves and sba's in. Another just for cents. I always check all coins before they go in either. Never really found anything good in change. Couple wheaties and and may a 50's nickel. No silver yet. That's thru what I'm guessing to be about $300-400 in change. Even though it would be a slim chance of finding anything good, I never give up on looking! Welcome to the coin side!!

[jpcienkus]

If you're interested in finding that hidden gem in loose change, pick up a Cherry Pickers guide.

 

http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/_search.php?page=1&q=cherry+pickers

[michael]

great question and i will be back tomorrow to update my post here and answer you

 

also welcome to the boards (thumbs u

[A.Romeo]

thanks for the warm welcome all

[Mainer020648]

I agree with jpcienkus on the Cherry Pickers guide. I had an NGC graded 1878-CC GSA in the original holder that I determined was a VAM-11. There are quite a few collectors that collect by VAM #'s. It was graded MS63. The NGC price guide value jumped from $425 to $725.

[DaveG]

Generally speaking, unless your change jar was filled many decades ago and left to sit very quietly on a shelf ever since, you are very, very unlikely to find a valuable coin in change - unless someone had recently taken (or stolen) a coin from a collector and spent it.

 

(Every so often, collectors spend low-value coins just to see if the person who finds it notices it and keeps it.)

 

Wheat cents (Lincoln cents minted before 1959) that you find in circulation today are usually worth 2 or 3 cents. Jefferson nickels from the 1950s are something that people like to save but probably won't fetch a premium to face value (except perhaps in roll quantities). It's very unusual to find silver dimes or quarters in change (worth about 15x face value).

[johnny9434]

If you're interested in finding that hidden gem in loose change, pick up a Cherry Pickers guide.

 

http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/_search.php?page=1&q=cherry+pickers

yeah, what he said

[Coindude]

Interestingly enough, I saw a 1969 doubled die that was recently graded. Could have been in circulation for quite some time by the look of it. It's a 5 figure coin, so yea they're still out there, but few and far between.

[SkyMan]

Welcome to the coin boards!

[cladking]

Many people don't realize that rare and scarce coins began disappearing from circulation way back around 1916. Of course what is considered scarce has evolved a great deal. Peopleset aside things like BU rolls of '26-S nickels but these were the first thing spent when money got tight in the depression.

 

As the country began emerging from the depression in 1935 coins again started getting pulled out. By this time coin collecting had become big business with the invention of the penny board and by the time everyone was working in in 1942 more than 95% of the '09-S VDB's had been removed from circulations. This is why such coins are rarely seen below VG condition.

 

Coin collecting exploded in the '50's and by 1957 there was nothing of note left and by 1964 these common coins were also worn out. Every single coin in circulation had been looked at literally hundreds of times to see if it was a rare date. So the only rare dates in circulation were ones that had been accidently spent. If you had 100 random cent rolls from 1957 there still wouldn't be anything of value today in them. There'd be interesting things like early cull indian cents but nothing that would appeal to most collectors.

 

Today it is much different because coins have been circulating for half a century without collectors looking at the dates. The few people who do look tend to not be very sophisticated. Coins worth substantial amouts of money are being found rarely but regularly. Most are rare varieties or mistakes made by the mint(s). But there are lots of scarce coins in circulation that have no particular value because there is almost no demand and they aren't known because they are scarce and lack demand. For instance there are some 40,000 1972-D quarters with a different reverse in circulation (type "b"). Most are in only G or VG condition but among so many a very few will be XF or AU. These will be among the finest known in the future of very scarce coins.

 

Your chances of finding a rare valuable coin today are not high but if you know what to look for you can find many coins that might have substantial value in the future. If you had a hundred rolls of 2014 quarters in 56 years you'd have numerous coins with substantial value in all probability.

[benjmurts]

This is my first time venturing over to the NGC-NCS forums. I'm usually only in the comic book section. I became curious as to how often someone finds a rare or valuable coin just from regular everyday change? Does it happen? Are all the rare coins already in collectors hands? I bring this up because I keep a coin jar and every few month I dump them coins out, roll them up and keep them all in a stash. Have been doing this for about 2 years now and pretty soon I'll be able to take a nice vacation with the fiance. When i was going through my coins, this was the first time I started looking at them, I found a few older coins but nothing extreme, just old. A 1939 penny and two others were from the 50's I believe one of them being a nickel. I went to the PCGS website to do a little research but its really hard to follow if you don't know what your looking for and I definitely don't.

 

Anyway it just got me thinking of all the collectors on here, and was curious if anyone has ever kept a coin jar that they would throw money into and found something valuable? I love hearing stories like that! Thanks all!

 

I go to the bank once a month and get $100 in pennies (100,000 pennies) and go though them, they let me know when people bring in old coins and I go through them.

I also talk to locals who have old coins and I look through them. I get my best coins when I buy peoples collections. I would spend a few thousand dollars just to go through a collection because there is a better chance to find that rare coin rather than looking on ebay or some coin shop.