What does a good numismatist do when he cashes out a $600 education IRA?

[pendragon1998]

Why, he asks for all of his money in half dollars, of course!

 

Well, I went in with good intentions, anyway. Bank of America ended up only having $300 in rolled half dollars, so I walked out with a free canvas 'bank robber' bag full of 600 half dollars and 3 Benjamins in my back pocket. Next, I went over to SunTrust to cancel out a $100 checking account I got so I could get a promotional $50 gift card. I wanted more half dollars! More! More! More!!!

 

Unfortunately, they only had a dozen loose halves in their drawers. Still, I wouldn't give up and I got $70 of the $100 in dollar coins - $50 rolled, the rest loose.

 

I got home and dumped out my Trick-or-treat bag.

 

I only got 3 silver pieces - 2 1964 and 1 1967 coins which were from the loose change at SunTrust. Looks like someone's gone through most of these. I still ended up getting some good stuff for my troubles though:

 

1979-P wide-rim SBA EF/AU - needs a soak in acetone, methinks (and I've been wanting one from circulation, so I'm happy!)

 

A stack of what looks like a dozen or so BU 1995-P 50c

 

A mildly broad-struck 1983

 

A 2002-S clad proof which still has most of a nice deep mirror and a cameo.

 

A worn 1972 with an "Aunt Chilada's Easy Street Cafe" sticker on the reverse - sorta neat.

 

I'm going to go back through them all again soon and do a distribution graph by date. I'll also be looking out for the errors, etc, which I may have missed as I sorted quickly for silver.

 

Sadly, however, most of these will be going back into the bank to help cover tuition.

[Bruceswar]

very cool ! Nice finds!

[physics-fan3.14]

I look forward to Christmas break very year, because my dad opens up the jar in which he has deposited all his change for the year. I've found some really neat stuff.

 

Congratulations on your finds, and happy hunting. You know, if you've got the time or the inclination, you can find some cool double dies in a pile that big.

[pendragon1998]

Finally got them all broken down by year and mint mark. I've very nearly got an entire year/mint run of the circulating issues. I'm lacking a few recent coins from '02 onward, a few from the 70s and 80s, and a few silver issues. I'm toying with the idea of retaining a year/mint set for myself and sticking it in a dansco before I return the rest to the bank. It would cost me ~$38 to do that plus an album. Assuming these are all F/EF to low MS, and ideas as to what such an album would garner on eBay?

 

When I count them, I'll post a date/mint distribution.

 

[pendragon1998]

Here's the promised graph. I counted all the coins and it turns out I have 639 - that's nearly $20 more than the $300 they were supposed to have in them!!

[pendragon1998]

Because the image of the graph above is so large, here's a mini version to get a basic idea of what it looks like. Click on the attachment in the PREVIOUS POST for a large, readable version.

 

[pendragon1998]

90 views and 2 replies besides mine. Glad I took the time...

[TomB]

I would have replied but I was just too stunned that someone besides me would make an Excel chart of coinage obtained in change. Seriously, I have an early half dollar chart very similar to your JFK chart that I made for an analysis of rarity.

[MikeKing]

I'm glad I took a look at this post because that was a lot of work and you deserve the respect you're entitled to...(paraphrasing Joan Crawfords crescendo:

"WWWhy can't you give me the respect I'm entitled to." from Mommy Dearest). All joking aside...you ended up with quite a load of coins to go through, and that's quite a feat. This actually inpsires me. My Uncle gave me a ton of coins he hoarded over the years, and at first glance it was mostly Franklins and Kennedys so I just threw the bag into the closet, where it's been sitting for the past couple of years or so. I just wouldn't know what to do with it. Would be interesting to see how your graph compares to the numbers actually minted!

[Brotherman]

Maul, I did a similar thing back in April. I bought $820 of halves from

several banks. I was lucky, I found 66 - 40% silver halves and 13 - 90%

silver halves. I used the best examples put in my type set and to fill a

Dansco album with as many dates and mintmarks as I could. Then I sold

the silver on eBay and took the rest back to my local bank - they hate me

now.

I’m missing the 1970D and basically everything from 1999 on.

I wish I did a chart that you did! It would have been cool to compare them,

but alas I didn’t think of it. I did however count the Bicentennial ones. I

had exactly 1,000 of them!

 

 

Hays

[pendragon1998]

I just bought a Dansco 7166 (believe that's the number, don't feel like checking) that holds 1964-2007, no proofs. I essentially got it for free, as I paid $300 for the half dollar rolls and got $320 in half dollars out of them. I can't wait to fill it up.

 

I already had a whitman folder from a decade ago, which has most if not all of the silver. I actually figured out that between swapping out my own coins for better examples from the rolls and exchanging my existing duplicates for ones I don't have, I should end up with more or less an even exchange. That is, I won't remove a net amount of money from the rolls. Pretty sweet deal. I want to sell these back to one bank and take the money to another to buy more half dollars.

 

I rarely use my banks except for online and atm banking, so I'm wondering: Do you have to be a member of a bank to go in and buy half dollars? My banks seemed a little perplexed why I wanted the coins, but were happy to get rid of them. The bank manager at Bank of America asked me "Um...you want twelve hundred half dollars?" They thought I was crazy, but I didn't particularly care

[WhiteTornado]

I was searching through halves for a while. My best find was thanks to my wife. She was able to snag 3 whole rolls of Franklins. No great shakes in them, but still it was very neat. I gave up searching due to scarcity of halves at banks where I used to live, plus the lack of time to devote to it.

 

If you look up user morganbarber (Steve) across the street, I know he was getting the $500 quantity of halves for a while. I think he was calling it a "box" of halves.

[Brotherman]

 

I rarely use my banks except for online and atm banking, so I'm wondering: Do you have to be a member of a bank to go in and buy half dollars? My banks seemed a little perplexed why I wanted the coins, but were happy to get rid of them. The bank manager at Bank of America asked me "Um...you want twelve hundred half dollars?" They thought I was crazy, but I didn't particularly care

 

No. I went to lots and lots of banks to find all the halves I bought. I did find

one near a Sonic Drive-in burger joint. Sonic is known for giving out change

in halves, so the bank where they do business had boxes of halves.

 

Hays

[Bruceswar]

I like the idea of a set of Kennedy's. Both look like they are going to be nice. Hays hows the Finepix working out?

[Brotherman]

I like the idea of a set of Kennedy's. Both look like they are going to be nice. Hays hows the Finepix working out?

 

Ha-ha, I didn't notice that I got the strap in the pic until I posted it. It's not a

bad camera. I bought it 4 or 5 years ago - it's the 3800 model, 3.2 Megs.

There are several cameras out there with higher Megs than this one for the

same money I paid, but it gets the job done.

 

Hey, this is off topic but whatever happened to that photo contest? Did it

just fizzle out?

 

Hays

[Bruceswar]

The coin is still going around. Its on its way to SilverEagles95 right now aka Chad. I will TTT the post with a list of people who are done.

 

To keep this on track.. I have really enjoyed seeing the finding of these hoard.

[MunkyMan95]

Haven't recieved it yet, hoping it will come today.

[cpm9ball]

My bank orders the $500 boxes for me on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, I just picked up two yesterday. When I have finished searching through them, I take the remainder back and they credit my account accordingly. They also supply me with all of the coin wrappers that I need for all denominations free of charge.

 

Chris

[pendragon1998]

What bank do you use, Chris?

[cpm9ball]

What bank do you use, Chris?

 

Bank of America

 

Chris

[Brotherman]

Chris, are you finding silver?

 

Hays

[cpm9ball]

Chris, are you finding silver?

 

Hays

 

Ordinarily, I do. To date, I've accumulated 1 roll of '64, 10 rolls of '65-'70 (40%), 3 Franklins and a dozen proofs. That is the result of searching 12 boxes ($6,000). However, I'm not sure if I'm going to find too much in the two latest boxes. I've already gone through 12 rolls, and there is extensive corrosion in every roll. I'll bet these came from (post-Katrina) New Orleans.

 

Chris

[Hoot]

Dave Lange wrote an article on collecting from circulation a while back in the Numismatists. I commented on that article, which I thought was great, here. I also wrote an article on this for Coin Values, May, 2005, Great Finds at Face Value: Collecting from circulation – the coins in your pocket. pp. 131-134. I illustrated the article with an identical effort of buying $500 of Kennedy halves and assembling a nearly complete collection in a Dansco album. Great fun!

 

Hoot

[pendragon1998]

 

Hey Brotherman - I can't quite tell from the image - do you have the 1987 halves in that album? If so, did you find them in circulation or did you buy them?

 

I'm doing the exact same thing. I bought a dansco 7166 and I'm filling it. I won't be quite done with it after I'm done with these halves, but I think I'll make another run and try and get some of the 21st century halves. I just won a 1970-D for my album and I'm toying with buying a 1987 mint set. I'll post pics when I'm caught up.

[pendragon1998]

Okay, I've got them all in the album now. Between the $300 worth of rolled half dollars and my existing collection, I've assembled a 61 coin collection (75% complete) of Kennedy Half Dollars in a Dansco 7166 album for only 30.50 including the price of the album. The halves I essentially got for face value (a few were purchased). The album was free - I paid $18 for it on eBay and I ended up getting about $20 extra in half dollars that weren't counted properly in the rolls. Most of the coins are low- to mid-grade uncirculated, with the remainder almost all AU.

 

Below is a photo of one of the nicer coins, the whole set of re-rolled halves ready to be deposited, and some photos of the Dansco album. Sorry, the pics are as small as I could make them! Okay, I'm not so sorry! This has been a ball.

 

Oh, as a side note: this is the first time I noticed that they changed the portrait of Kennedy to be smaller from 1994 to 1995. Weird. I never paid that much attention before now.

 

 

EDIT: Just realized that I inadverently had two images of page 4 on the composite image from the album. I replaced the missing page 2 where it should be. Sorry!

[DC Dawg]

I'm lacking a few recent coins from '02 onward

 

FYI... the Mint has not circulated Kennedy halves since 2001. In 2001, the Mint circulated some Denver minted coins. The orders for circulated halves from the Federal Reserve Banks are fulfilled with 2000-2001 coins that are in the Mint's inventory. Halves minted since 2001 have been for collectors only with very few in inventory. In fact, if you visit the Mint's online catalog, you can purchase rolls and bags of 2001 halves.

 

As for the half collection... it sounds like fun. I did something similar (I did it over time) and was able to put together a complete set without proofs. I purchased the proofs in order to fill the holes!!

 

So I'm impressed!

 

Scott

[pendragon1998]

I didn't realise that about the halves not being released after '01 until just a few minutes before I read your post (Hoot just sent me a great article he wrote which mentioned that fact as well). That makes me think that a collector must have been spending his extra 2004-Ps from a bag or roll, since I got one out of the rolls.

 

Oh, and I updated the image above of the album that I posted - I inadvertently put page 4 where page 2 should have been.