Water bottles and Silver Dollars/Halves...

[GlassyEyed]

In reading these post I have a new outlook on one particular aunt's saving habits. Let me explain...

She saves "ALL" of her coins...never spends them at all. She has the 5 gallon water bottles filled to the rim with everything from pennies up to the large dollar coins. Matter of fact she has at least two of each for halves and large dollars. I have never even once thought of going through them to see whats there, but man I am going to the next time I visit...which will be soon hopefully.

I'll let you guys know what I find...it has to be interesting as she has been collecting these for well over 30 years.

 

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[LemonThrower]

be very careful not to break those bottles - the coins are very heavy and put a lot of force on the glass. its very easy to break the glass. put a towel underneath to absorb some of the shock.

 

[obsessedwithsilver]

I've got an old five gallon water bottle and the mouth of the jar is too small for halves or Ikes.

OWS

 

[supn9]

Sounds like some keepers there.

 

[DigginThePast]

Sounds like huge potential. Hope you have some great finds.

 

[silvercop]

na total waste of time........take those coins to a coinstar machine........just kiding.....get to searching and take pics of your finds

 

[GlassyEyed]

I called her about an hour ago...said I can go thru them all, but unfortunately she no longer has most of the dollar coins.

She did tell me she still all of the ones her dad saved over the years stored away in a closet. He passed about two years ago and was in his late eighties. I obviously can't keep any of them, but going through them should be a treat and I'll get some pics as well.

She also said that she never checked a single date on any of them...just threw the in the jar. Nice...

 

[silvercop]

sounds like you may have days of work ahead of you. you might want to invest in a current redbook if you don't have one and take it along too. also another suggestion. if you aunt won't let you cherry pick and keep anything that interests you i would suggest that you seperate the coins of interest and tell her that those are the coins you would like to keep in the family for future generations. if those coins have been there as long as you say they have there is no telling what you will find. good luck

 

[Produce Guy]

We had a group of people come into the store where I work with 5 of those 5gallon bottles,filled to the top with coins.Well they had trouble picking them up and trying to pour them into the coinslot of the coinstar machine.Two of the bottles were plastic and they had a hard time pouring them out until a customer told them to get a hacksaw and cut the spout off,this worked,but the bad thing was the machine st oped after just counting one bottle,the amount was something like $3000,not bad.

 

[Coins4Cheese]

Can't wait to see how it turns out!

 

[GlassyEyed]

Finally made it down and....

My wife's aunt didn't have as many as she has had in the past. I didn't ask her what she had done with them, but she still had approx. $3k worth of halves in this bottle.

The first ones I poured...maybe a handful and I could hear the clink of silver....total loose Silver halves were 99 with approx 80% of those 90%'rs. I didn't separate 40% & 90%...just seprated all silver from others.

After we did that and pulled out the 99 silvers she opened an old tool box for me which contained more loose halves and 3 $10 rolls. I spotted 3 more silvers in the loose pile. I then opened just the ends of the rolls and spotted 4 more on the ends of the 3 rolls...bringing the tally to a minimum of 107 silver halves with the possiblity of more in the rolls...a very strong possiblity. I didn't open the rolls because she said they had been closed since her dad rolled them probably 20 years ago....

Funny thing is...even after I explained the value she was going to dump them back in the jar and call it good...she has no intention of ever spending or selling them...just saving. I finally convinced her to at least keep them separated by putting them in the tool box with the others. See the pic below of the original 99...sorry pic was taken with cell.

We also found a 1987 half...the first I've found after going through a few thousand dollars worth...so what is the big deal about an 87" again? Value?