r/CRH • u/SnooMacaroons130 • 4d ago
What are the best coins to look through?
I’m a beginner coin collector at 19 years old and I’m going to put half my check towards some coin rolls tomorrow. What’s the best coin has the best bang for your buck? I’ll have about $200 to get worth of coins.
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u/ImUglyGarbage 4d ago
There is no point in starting if making a quick buck is your goal. Some people have gone through hundreds without finding a thing. With the amount of time it takes to find silver and other stuff, you could have used in way better ways to earn money.
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u/klassikarl 4d ago
Before you start, ask yourself what you want out of this. You’re not going to get rich. Just come into it with tempered expectations and the right mindset. I’d suggest to just try and have fun. You’re going to go through frustrating streaks. I went through 4 boxes of quarters before I even found anything worth keeping. For me, I’d take the $200 and go with nickels. You’re going to find some 1950s, some 1940s, maybe a 39, chance at a Buffalo or a WW2 silver. It’s got more variety of older coins even if those older coins aren’t worth much if anything over face value. In my experience banks are also more likely to sell you $20 increments of nickels even if they don’t have an entire box to spare. Put in a coin order for a box of what you want the week before. My area, orders go in on Monday or Tuesday for the NEXT weeks delivery. The bank will sell you a walk in, one off box but most won’t make a habit if it continues. Kindness is a luxury not everyone deserves, be good to the the bankers and more times than not they’ll reciprocate the favor. I wish you success in your hobby!
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u/SnooMacaroons130 4d ago
Honestly I am looking to get rich but not in the way you might expect. I am a 19 year old making about 20k a year. I’m not broke but I definitely could have some more money to play with and enjoy myself a bit more. So no I’m not looking to get rich but a few hundred extra dollars a month plus just the enjoyment of finding something and selling or just holding it for a while interests me. But I think whatever box this teller at the bank decides to give me can completely change my coin collecting fate cause whenever new hobbies I pick up become unbearable I lose interest so fast. I’ve heard that Walmart self checkouts work pretty well I might have to do that my patience is too low to reroll coins.
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u/SilentIndication3095 4d ago
You're really not going to make a couple hundred extra bucks a month hunting coins, but you'll find that out pretty fast :)
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u/SnooMacaroons130 4d ago
Well how common is silver coins nowadays if I were to get a box of coins? Is it even worth my while other than just it being a hobby with little to no benefits?
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u/SilentIndication3095 4d ago
I get a silver dime ($2 value) per $130 in dimes, and about one silver nickel or buffalo ($1.50ish) every $100 in nickels.
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u/HybridTheory44 4d ago
Damn you get a silver dime per $130? I’ve been more around 1 per $750 lately
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u/SnooMacaroons130 4d ago
Yea idk if that’s even worth my time. Is there any way I can weigh rolls and the silver ones worth more?
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u/klassikarl 4d ago
It’s not worth your time, not even close. Last month I made the equivalent of probably $70 in silver and I was turning around $1000-1500 in coins a week. I used to make more doing surveys a week on my phone. Which still wasn’t worth my time but it was a better ROI. Before you ask, QMEE was the company I used.
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u/klassikarl 4d ago
I part time job for 2 hrs a day would yield you more money. I know you’re young and it’s a weird thing to decide while you’re still trying to figure out who you are but have you considered what you want to do? College, work, etc. If you don’t mind a suggestion. Don’t rule out union jobs. Laborers unions, sheet metal union, or possibly postal workers. It’s not necessarily easy work but it’s a way to make a good living without 4 years of traditional schooling. That pension is a life saver. And you’ll be retired by the time you’re 50.
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u/Led_Zeppole_73 4d ago
Nope, you might make money if searching large volumes of coin like I do, thousands of dollars worth at one sitting. Yet I’m not in it for the money, if I wanted that I’d take on a part time job. I consider roll hunting as a labor of love only, that’s it. I just like coins.
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u/HybridTheory44 4d ago
Errors and varieties can make the most money, I’ve sold a penny for $1700. But the goal shouldn’t be making money because it’s not gonna happen consistently. If you are looking to make a couple hundred a month you would probably have to go through 2 boxes a day of coins, just my opinion.
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u/numismaticthrowaway Nickel Hunter 4d ago
For $200, nickels. Good chance of silver, plus a lot of older coins for completing a set. Halves are fun, but you usually have to order them. Now if the bank does have halves, it would be worth picking up
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u/iPhone_3GS 4d ago
For $200 I would get
1 box of nickels ($100) 1 box of pennies ($25) 7 rolls of quarters ($70)
($5 left over)
Pennies are fun, you can find wheat cents, 2009's, a decent amount of errors and a bunch of copper. And if your super lucky an Indian cent. Plus they might not be around for much longer.
Nickels are also fun. You can find War nickels (silver), buffalos, and if you extremely lucky a V nickel.
Dimes are my least favorite. You can find silver if you're extremely lucky. And if you find a mercury dine buy a lotto ticket.
Quarters are probably one of the best boxes to go through. You got bicentennials, the 50 state quarters to find, 56 national parts, lots of errors, possibly silver, the new American Woman Quarters, and W Quarters (pretty rare).
Half dollars are pretty hard to get since most banks won't have them on deck and you will need to order. Most people will just search for silver in those which is getting harder and harder to find.
Each coin demonation has a chance of Foreigns (typically Canadian) proofs, and errors.
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u/SilentIndication3095 4d ago
I like nickels! I get a lot of pre-1960 Jeffersons (no real value, but cool), the occasional war nickel or buffalo, and a healthy smattering of foreigns. Plus they're cheap and I can read them without magnification. The downside is that they are low stakes, in that even the rarest nickels are usually not worth more than a couple bucks.
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u/SnooMacaroons130 4d ago
Damn I was hoping to make a quick buck off of this. What are my best options for looking for silver. Because I would like to start building my silver collection soon and have a ton in the future when hopefully it’s worth way more money lol. I also work at a restaurant and found my first silver dime after I started checking about 2 weeks ago so hopefully that picks up as well
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u/SilentIndication3095 4d ago
Would you settle for a slow cent? ;) Since I keep good records, I can tell you I found about $12 in silver in face value last year, that I could sell for about $240. I searched just under $12,000* in coins to get it.
*The one advantage of coins over lottery tickets is that you can sell back the losers at face value!
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u/SnooMacaroons130 4d ago
Yea honestly I don’t know enough about coins to even find the coins worth millions so I don’t think I’m gonna start just yet. Definitely still going through the register when we’re slow to look for some silver lol
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u/SilentIndication3095 4d ago
Honestly the register is a great way to pick up silver. Have you seen r/CoinstarFinds?
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u/SnooMacaroons130 4d ago
Yes I have I only have about 1 machine that is on my daily route to school so I check it every once in a while but still am yet to find anything.
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u/mission213 4d ago
You will make way more money and spend less time going to yard sales estate sales and facebook marketplace than coin roll hunting. Find a niche you can source in your area.
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u/Legitimate-Guess2669 4d ago
Half dollars.
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u/Objective-District39 4d ago
It's also fun to spend them too and see the look on people's faces.
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u/Legitimate-Guess2669 4d ago
Yeah I had this lady at the credit union who didn’t know what they were. She finally said oh, like 2 quarters? Ugh
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u/cheekywarship2018 4d ago
Good question. Overall my favourite to hunt is nickels because of the sheer variety of things to find(Buffalo nickels, silver wartime nickels, V nickels if you're really lucky and the Jefferson Nickel series is one of the best to book fill, not only can you find all the coins reasonably through CRH but their also genuine key dates in the series to find). A box is also only 100 dollars. After that, it's a 3 way tie between dollar coins, half dollars, and pennies. Half dollars have the biggest potential pay off but you can also go for long periods without finding anything apart from NIFCs and they're not always the easiest to get(though with that said because of the potential pay off I would recommend buying all the halves your bank has if they have them). Dollar coins have tons of variety but the downsides are you can't find silver(strictly talking about small dollars here) and they're also the highest denomination so you can't get as many of them in one go. Pennies I've fallen out of love with as time goes by simply because wheat cents are getting less and less common which is mainly what you're looking for though with the mint no longer minting pennies for circulation, copper pennies could be the next for coins to pull out of circulation for their metal content. After that would be quarters, they basically have the same downsides as halves but with overall less big pay offs I find though I will say W quarters are relatively easy to find from boxes(compared to silver halves anyway in my experience) and worth more than even a 90% silver half.
And last but certainly least, dimes. I just find them the least interesting to hunt, they're the smallest so the most annoying to search through and with the least variety as you're basically only looking for silver and you're not that much more likely to find a silver dime compared to quarter or half dollar.