Notes from California

For the past few days I have been in California attending a programming conference. The conference was helpful, but my trip was supposed to be a whole lot more fun because Meg was planning on joining me. On Monday I screwed up big time and caused us to miss our flight. I don't know what I was thinking when I decided on the time we needed to leave the house. I'm not sure I was really thinking at all. We then waited three hours for another flight. We got on that plane, but before take off we were removed from the plane. I can't really explain it; we had boarding passes. It was really stressful and meant we'd have to wait seven more hours before we left. Meg decided to stay home at that point. It was the right decision as our the time we would get to spend together was greatly shortened. It was a tough decision.

On my previous trips to California I had more time to source, search and dump coins and so this year I just couldn't get through as much. I did, however, have one good bank find. One of the last banks I visited had a whole bunch of mint set rolls (these were sold directly by the mint and can usually be sold on E-Bay for a premium). I found five Sacagawea mint set rolls (2002D, 2004D, 2005D, 2 x unknown) and five half dollar mint set rolls (2003P, 2 x 2003D, 2005D, 2006D).



91 large dollars and 116 half dollars only produced one 40% silver half (1968D).

I also came across three Presidential dollar coins I hadn't found before, 2008D Van Buren, 2009D William Henry Harrison and 2009D James Polk. I couldn't find any rolls of 2009D John Tyler. I found a single one, but I spent it by mistake! Ugh.

I rounded up 32,050 pennies and in them I found ninety-six Wheats, thirty Canadians, eleven US dimes, one Bahamas 1¢ and one plastic penny. In the mix I found a new variety, the 2009D Professional Life. I also came across a nice blank planchet (I'll have to weigh it when I get home to see if it's 95% copper penny or a copper plated penny. The Wheats were:

1913, 1940S, 1942(3), 1942D, 1944(5), 1944D, 1944S(4), 1945(3), 1946(2), 1946D(3), 1946S(2), 1949S(3), 1950(2), 1950S, 1951S(3), 1952S(5), 1953D, 1953S(4), 1954S, 1955(2), 1956(5), 1956D(13), 1957(2), 1957D(12), 1958, 1958D(12)

Found: 27 pennies (15 at Mollie Stones), 1 nickel (at Mollie Stones), 6 dime (1 in my rental car), 1 quarter (at the airport)