Why HALVES are perfect for CRHing and why we will never run out of silver...

[baddbluff]

For all of you WHINERS out there who think the silver has dried up, consider this...

1) In 1964, there were almost 430 million 90% silver halves minted. That's about as many as were minted in the ENTIRE Ben Franklin series.
2) From 1965 to 1969, there were another 850 million (appox.) 40% silver halves minted.
3) That's more than 1 billion (with a B) silver JFKs put in circulation.
4) A lot of people, EVEN BANK TELLERS, don't know the 40%ers have silver in them.
5) Many of the people who did save the 40%ers, cashed them in to banks over the years for face value (myself included here, way back when) because silver wasn't worth much until recently, and they weren't really worth saving.
6) Half dollars haven't circulated for years, and there are still hundreds of millions of them, never searched by collectors, still sitting in vaults.
7) Grandpa kept his stash/hoard of silvers rolled up in common bank paper rolls, then kicked the bucket. Grandma (who always outlives Grandpa, because women always take better care of themselves than us men) cashed them in thinking they weren't anything special. If not found right away by you or me, these halves make their way back into rolls and back into boxes, only to be found by us down the road.
8) WE, like grandpa, keep the coins WE find wrapped up in common paper rolls - because we don't want our wives to know how much money we have made from CRHing - get old, and kick the bucket. Our wives (who are bored by our talk of CRHing), outlive us - like our grandparents before us - then become grandmas (who don't know any better) and cash in our silver for the next generation.

And the cycle repeats itself.

Moral of the story... Keep your silver sweetness in plastic coin tubes, and write on them "Worth hundreds of dollars, Honey, DON'T cash these in for face value!" on the side with a Sharpie.

A little math to keep it in prospective... If only 10% of that silver were still in the wild, and 1000 of us pull 10 silvers out of boxes every day, it wouldn't run out until 2046.
(I think I did the math right.)

So keep searching! VOLUME is the key. I look back on those old posts from '06 and '07, and think - MAN, I wish I started back then! BUT, silver is worth like 3 or 4 times more now than back then... that means that finding 10 in a box today is as good as finding 30 or 40 just a few years ago!

Good luck all, and stay OPTIMISTIC!

HH

BADDBLUFF

 

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[TheRockDoc]

OMG, I love this post.... Great job putting some things into perspective. I love the creativity, and I too sometimes struggle with staying optimistic in terms of CRH'ing so this was needed. Thanks for the positive jumpstart for the week.... I am going to wake up and go find some silver.

 

[StevoCBR]

But of course the big question is how many of those got melted down?

 

[BuffaloBoy]

Nice post! let's not give those lurkers any ideas

 

[Bentfork]

But of course the big question is how many of those got melted down?

Back in the 80s when the Hunt brothers tried to take over the world - millions. It can only be estimated.

HH

Bentfork

 

[clovis97]

Good post!!!!!!

 

[Theolog]

I also have a theory to add to this post. When Silver prices go down, things will just get better. The reason I say this is because most of the halves curculating today are the ones you and I buy and re-deposit. Bank coin machines get emptied on a weekly, or even daily basis, and these bags contain mostly our dumps. When the number of coin roll hunters drops when silver finally falls in price, then these bags of coins will sit on the coin counters for longer periods of time. This gives more time for Grandmothers across the country to cash in Grandpa's silver halves. The percentage of silver in boxes bought from the banks will only go up.

 

[jim4silver]

Yes there will always be SOME silver, but the question is how much? Will silver halves someday be as rare as silver quarters are now, who knows?

All towns are different, but in my area the finds have decreased steadily over time since I began CRHing in April 2008. From what I have read from many posters on here, their finds are less too. Even some who were doing 20 boxes a week were finding just a few.

Here are some reasons why CRHers will find less silver as time goes on, from a whiner (realist) to the optimists (pollyannas).

1. Once a silver coin is sent to the refiner, it will not be a coin anymore but a part of a nice shiny silver bar.

2. As silver goes up in price, more attention will be given to silver coins as the masses read about silver's rising price, this happens when a new high price is about to be breached. People will see full page newspaper ads listing how much certain coins are worth, like 40%ers. Thus they will become educated as to the value of grandpa's collection.

3. Once a 90 or 40 percent silver coin is sold to a coin store or investor, they have a less likely (not impossible though) chance of reaching a bank and into the hands of a CRHer. Unless the collector and his spouse die at the same time, chances are the surviving spouse is going to know the bag of silver coins has great value, because if it was bought as a investment in this last bull run it cost a pretty penny so to speak and the spouse will be aware of it.

4. With all the CRHing going on, more tellers are going to catch on as time passes. Yes, some may not care and will not cherry pick, but many will. Those who are somehow genetically predisposed to become a silver bug (like many of us here presumably are) will happily pilfer all the silver they can find once they learn that some old US coins contain silver. More competition for the CRHer right at the source (the bank) is never good and will lead to some CRHers fighting with tellers when they cannot pry the silver coin from them, which in turn only draws more bad attention to CRHing and will further educate tellers as to this addiction called CRHing.

5. Even if the supply of fresh silver coins hitting the system were to magically stay the same, increased
CRHing activity will cut into your finds. Ask anyone who has had just a single, over zealous CRHer enter their "territory" and see what happens to the increased number of skunk boxes. Now multiply that by 2, 3, etc, as the price of silver continues to climb and the economy declines. If a brand new CRHer happens upon just a decent box, it will take a lot of skunks to undue the addiction once it starts, and as long as said CRHer keeps finding a few here and there, the addiction will continue in the face of diminishing returns (I am living proof of that, as well as others here from what I have heard).

6. Silver coins have not been made here for circulation in over 40 years or so. That is a long time for coins (money) to be sitting around when the economy has been crappy for so long. For the most part, if a stash is still just sitting in a vault or closet somewhere, it means someone who owns it is saving it because they know the value and will take it to a coin dealer when they are ready. And thanks to the internet, if they pass away there is a great chance the heirs will know the value. I have some friends in the coin business and have been told that much of the time when big stashes of silver coins are brought in it is done by the children or grandchildren of the owners who (thanks to the internet) found out the coins' value in seconds when grandpa died and decided to come to the coin store to sell.

To all the new CRHers, your best bet is to find smarter and better ways to out score your fellow CRHers in your area. Volume and dedication are the best ways to luck into grandpa's stash when it hits the system, which it will from time to time. Yes there will always be some silver to be found, but over time it will be less and less, just like many here have personally witnessed in just a few years. So get out there and search now like crazy because you don't know what the future holds.

Just my opinion.

Jim

 

[ivan salis]

quite true on the 1965 to 1970 era 40% ers --my young bank tellers only know to look out for the 1964's ( old silver blocking teller tipped them off to the 1964 era 90 % ers)-- and no I'm not smarting them up about the 40% ers either * --the other day I got a 1995 "s" silver 90% er proof from one of my tellers--- its the rarest of the entire kennedy half series with a bit less that 700,000 made * with 350 million folks out there in the usa thats a adverage of -- 1 coin per every 500 folks -- plus that was 16 years ago as well .

 

[jim4silver]

quite true on the 1965 to 1970 era 40% ers --my young bank tellers only know to look out for the 1964's ( old silver blocking teller tipped them off to the 1964 era 90 % ers)-- and no I'm not smarting them up about the 40% ers either * --the other day I got a 1995 "s" silver 40% er proof from one of my tellers--- its the rarest of the entire kennedy half series with a bit less that 700,000 made * with 350 million folks out there in the usa thats a adverage of -- 1 coin per every 500 folks -- plus that was 16 years ago as well .

Ivan,

The 95 silver proofs are 90% silver. So your find was even better than you thought.

Jim

 

[mleblanc138]

I'm single, so I just write "40% Silver" or "90% Silver" on the side of paper coin rolls about 5 times, with a Silver marker. I'll totally keep up the Half and Dime volume. 8 skunks in a row wasn't enough to stop me after walking out of my first Half Dollar bank with 3 40%s.

 

[ivan salis]

opps my goof meant to put 90% but put 40% by mistake. on the 1995 "S" silver proof * I got from my teller gals -- its a minimum $50 dollar coin at least in minty proof shape . --they got a bit of chocolate fer that one. --

 

[koala33]

Nice opinions and good facts! I constantly think about where I am going to find some more silver.

 

[SFBayArea]

THere will always be some in circulation however the amount is the question.

The lower the silver prices, the more there will be. The higher the silver prices, the less there will be.

I've been doing this hobby for a while and I can see the trends. When silver was $6/oz.. there were very few skunk boxes.. Now it's half the time.

It also depends on the area

Also as prices go up.. additional coinage will be melted. When silver was $48/oz months ago.. a local dealer mentioned that some were melted down and going overseas.

 

[TheRockDoc]

excellent post i am one of the complainers and i learn from these good posts.Another idea to help not getting as many skunks is too send your clad out of distric big time!this will help.And get with other chrers in the area which is hard to do.And ask them nicely if they want to send out of distric too!I talked to a head teller and she said i was wasting my time.Im getting the same coins.I wish this theory could work!The oxymoron thing about this is other districs will do the same too unless you have a surrounding county that does not have many crhers..getting rid of clad in your distric will get you closer to the silver in the warehouse that has never been touched!

I would love feedback from anybody who knows anything or thinks they know anything about this so called, "silver in the warehouse that has never been touched." Do you really believe it exists? I dont see why not, but it is still a bit hard for me to imagine that the fed, or whoever just has some old bags of silver lying around, waiting until someone needs them for circulation. Any thoughts on that are much appreciated...

 

[Bentfork]

excellent post i am one of the complainers and i learn from these good posts.Another idea to help not getting as many skunks is too send your clad out of distric big time!this will help.And get with other chrers in the area which is hard to do.And ask them nicely if they want to send out of distric too!I talked to a head teller and she said i was wasting my time.Im getting the same coins.I wish this theory could work!The oxymoron thing about this is other districs will do the same too unless you have a surrounding county that does not have many crhers..getting rid of clad in your distric will get you closer to the silver in the warehouse that has never been touched!

I would love feedback from anybody who knows anything or thinks they know anything about this so called, "silver in the warehouse that has never been touched." Do you really believe it exists? I dont see why not, but it is still a bit hard for me to imagine that the fed, or whoever just has some old bags of silver lying around, waiting until someone needs them for circulation. Any thoughts on that are much appreciated...

My opinion, there probably is a bank vault somewhere even possibly several bank vaults that still have a bag or two of all silver halves, quarters or dimes. But the caveat to that again IMO is the bank is probably not in some big city. To me it would have to be in a small town that is in the middle of Kansas, or Nebraska, Iowa, or some other predominantly rural state. The rub though is that banks - even small rural ones usually don't keep large sums of coins. And bank vaults are not exactly places one can get lost in. I think someone since 1965 would probably have noticed a bag of halves that have been sitting in there for 20 years. Trust me, some employees in rural banks work for the bank for 15, 20 or even 25 years. I stopped in a bank in Kansas last year while on vacation and asked for halves. The teller asked how many I wanted. Of course I asked how many they had. Well, I left with 2K in CWR. I had to let the other 8K go. According to the teller they were halves a customer dumped on them that he had ordered at the only other bank in town. When I asked how long they had been there I was told about 4 years. Now why didn't they send them out? You got me. I found 1 40% in the entire bunch.

Most likely if there are bags that have a large number of silver pieces in them, they probably are in a processing center for Brinks, Loomis, etc in a smaller metropolis. I can't see why these facilities would have a FIFO inventory considering coins don't have an expiration date. If that is the case then the older bags may still be at the bottom of the heap if there is not a large draw for halves let's say. The inside of these facilities are huge. They have racks like at Sam's or Costco that are stacked just as high too. The racks are piled with coin boxes and bags on pallets.

HH

Bentfork