Rare Nickel Found

Last night I went through another 3 boxes of coins. The box of dimes was a dud. No silver Rosies and no Canadian dimes in the whole box. The nickels box, however, was great. Nine Jefferson Nickels have mintages of less than 10 million. In the box was one of them, 1939D. I now have four of the nine key dates. The box also contained two 1948D nickels, a common one I needed, one War Time nickel (1944P) and one US penny. The box of pennies was also good. It had two date/mints I needed, 1939S and 1954. My first one cent piece from Panama was also in the box.

Found: 2 pennies (outside the Post Office)

A Coin Finding Partner!

Yesterday, my wife joined me in the coin finding pursuit and contributed a nickel to the stash. It was sweet. Four eyes are better than two!

I had some pretty good luck at the bank yesterday. In the morning when picking up boxes I got a hold of another Ike dollar that I needed (1972). Just a few more to go and that album will be complete before it arrives at our home!

In the evening I searched 1 box of dimes, 1 box of nickels and 1 box of pennies. The dimes only produced one silver Rosie (1964), the nickels and the pennies were pretty good though. In the nickel box I found one of the remaining two common dates I needed (dates which are not key and not War Time). It's my most chewed up specimen, however. It is maroon colored and looks like it spent some time on the road being driving over. I also found another War Time nickel (1943P). It's odd that in all of the nickels I've searched I've found quite a few silver nickels, but all of them have been P's. Those D's and S's are bound to turn up soon. I did even better with the penny box. I found tons of Canadians, including two years I didn't have. I now have all Canadian pennies from 1959-2004. The box also produced my first 2007D (a really shiny one), a somewhat corroded 1982D large date zinc (I'll look for a better one.), and a few wheat upgrades.

Found: 4 pennies (1 near Shaw's, 1 at the Sovereign Bank, 1 at the Liquor Store, 1 at the Mobil Mart), 1 nickel (M's first find for the year), 2 dimes (1 near Shaw's, 1 at the Sovereign Bank)

Redeemed: $5.40

Right in Front of Me

Today I had one of my easiest finds ever. A half hour ago my wife and I went for a walk. Just outside the door to our building, at the bottom of our steps was a crumpled one dollar bill!



The bill find fits the day. Just before I discovered a Kennedy half dollar that I didn't think I had. For some reason it occurred to me to look on the back of my 1964 halves for a D mint mark (I had been looking on the front where the mint marks are for 1968 and onwards.). I found two 1964Ds, one in decent shape. I'm not sure how I wasn't aware of the mint mark location for that year. Now I only have 3 more halves to go before my circulation set is complete, 1982D, 1988D, and 1999D.

Today I also decided to look for the different date sizes for my Lincoln Memorial pennies. I had been thinking I'd just ignore those places in my albums, but I couldn't let it go anymore. I went through 5,000 pennies I had at hand. Now, I only need a small date 1970S and a large date 1982D zinc.

Found: 1 dollar bill (outside our apartment)

Good Halves

Today after we got home I looked over all the halves I got on Saturday. I didn't bring my albums with me on my trip so I didn't know exactly what I had in my collection. I found two additional keepers, a 1994D that is in much better condition than my previous specimen and a 2003D. After 2001 halves have been minted only for collectors and not for general circulation. Anything 2002 and later is a keeper.

Just a few minutes ago I tried to unload a bucket of halves at my grocery store. I figured that their self-service aisle would be a good place to get rid of some of them. I had no luck, though because the machine just spit them back out. Very strange.

Found: 18 pennies (3 at Shaw's), 1 nickel, 10 dimes (2 at Shaw's), 2 quarters

A Good Bank Run

Today I did a bank run looking for halves and large dollar coins (Eisenhowers). I was able to go to 11 banks in my in-laws' town in the western part of the state. It was a pretty good experience.

At the first bank I found four clad halves and one Eisenhower. I was pretty excited as I didn't expect to find any Eisenhowers, but have decided lately that'll I'll try to complete an album of those. I killed some time in a supermarket and found a Canadian quarter.

At the second and third bank I found nothing. At the fourth my luck started to improve as I found nine clad halves. At the fifth I found 6 halves one of which was a 40% silver one. I also found a penny at that bank. My sixth bank turned up nothing.

I took a break and "hit" a car wash. It was the biggest self service car wash I've ever seen. Land is just too pricey in my area to have these businesses. I found four pennies, 1 dime and 1 quarter. Not too bad.

At the seventh bank I had my biggest score. They had $72 in halves and $23 in Eisenhowers. I gladly took them all! I then hit 3 more banks, the eigth had only one half, a 1985 that I didn't bother to take. The ninth bank had $10.50 in halves, all clad. At the tenth bank I did fairly well, I thought. They had $67 in halves. I think the rolls were someone else's rejects though. The final bank had about a dozen halves and ten Eisenhowers. I saw the teller checking the dates before he gave the halves to me - so I only got clad ones.

When I got home I checked out my loot. I found six 40% halves (1965, 2 x 1967, 2 x 1968D, 1969D) and one 90% half (1964). One of the 40% is colored strangely and has a hole in it.



I also discovered that I had 7 new Eisenhower dates for my collection (1971, 1971D, 1972D, 1974, 1974D, 1976, 1978), now I need to find just four more. Hope I might try to search for some during my lunch breaks.

Found: 13 pennies (1 at the Mobil, 2 at Dunkin' Donuts, 5 at the Mall, 1 at Legacy Bank, 4 at the Car Wash), 1 nickel (at Dunkin' Donuts), 3 dimes (1 at Dunkin' Donuts, 1 at Target, 1 at the Car Wash), 1 quarter (1 at the Car Wash), 1 foreign coin (at the Big Y)

Strong Finish

Well, looks like I'm going to finish out the first half of the year strong. Yesterday I found only 3 pennies, 2 at the Mobil Mart and 1 at Burger King. Today things were better though. At the Shell I found a quarter in the pay phone and a penny by the vacuums (I never seem to make out like Bailey near those things.). Then at the Shaw's on an errand I found 3 quarters, 1 dime, 1 penny, 1 T token (worth $1.70), and 1 Canadian nickel. And finally at the Mobil Mart I found 1 beat up penny.

Last night's coin roll hunting went pretty well. The night before I went through 3 boxes, 1 of pennies, 1 of nickels and 1 of dimes. In the boxes I found 1 wheat penny I didn't have and few Canadian coins I needed. It was a disappointing search. Last night though I tried the same number of boxes and found 1 silver dime (1960D, one I needed), 1 dateless Buffalo nickel, 1 War Time nickel (1943P, I've found a bunch of these but haven't found and D's or S's, the ones I need), and 1 needed wheat penny. Pretty slim pickings, but still better than the night before.



At the bank yesterday I also got a roll of the new John Adams dollar coins. So far I've kept one, used several in a vending machine with no problems, and one at the Mobil Mart with no questions. I'm not sure if there are sites devoted to grass roots dollar coin efforts, but I did find two regarding the $2 bill.

$2 Bill Project

Two Dollar Bills

I also found a site dedicated to listing free or cheap coin counting options. It is called The Coin Counting Home Page and is pretty useful.

This morning I got another year of Popular Mechanics through My Coke Rewards.

Found: 6 pennies (3 at the Mobil Mart, 1 at Burger King, 1 at the Shell, 1 at Shaw's), 1 dime (1 at Shaw's), 4 quarters (1 at the Shell, 3 at Shaw's), and 1 foreign coin (at Shaw's)

Feeling Lucky

Today I had a great bank experience. At lunch I went to the bank to dump a whole bunch of waste coins. Things started out well when I found a nickel right by my car.

About 15 minutes later when I was midway through my waste coins a lady came to use the Coin Star machine. I finished the box I was on and let her use the machine. While waiting I found two pennies and 1 Canadian quarter. Once she was done I asked to buy her reject coins. In her rejects I found 2 silver dimes (1957 and 1961), 4 Canadian quarters and 6 Canadian dimes. I then finished with my coins.

As I left the bank I noticed that another person left a whole bunch of coins in the shute. In the shute I found 3 pennies, 10 dimes and one quarter!

Found: 5 pennies (2 near Coin Star machine at Sovereign Bank, 3 in the Coin Star shute at Sovereign Bank), 1 nickel (outside of Sovereign Bank), 10 dimes (all in the Coin Star shute at Sovereign Bank), 1 quarter (in the Coin Star shute at Sovereign Bank) and 1 foreign coin (near the Coin Star machine at Sovereign Bank)