James Wesley:
When my father passed away a few years back my sisters and I split his meager coin collection. So I had a small amount to start out with. At one point when silver’s price dropped a bit I went to a local pawn shop and bought thirty-two 90% silver quarters for spot price. The melt value has increased roughly 10% so far.
Then I went into local banks and asked if they had any fifty cents pieces. Sure enough a teller provided me one 1964 (90% silver) and a couple of the 1965-1970 vintage (40% silver), getting the coins at face value. After that I began to inquire about rolls of fifty cent pieces. Each roll of half dollars contains 20 coins. One bank teller told me she has had five rolls so I bought two and went to my car to search through them. One of the rolls was all 1965 to 1970 and the other was about half of that vintage. So I immediate went back into the bank and got the other three rolls, scoring a total 64 of the 40% silver variety in the five rolls. For my $50, I got roughly $350 dollars in silver value. The rest of the coins I deposited back into my account at another bank. Since that day I have gone to different banks to get half dollar rolls. Some have them others do not. Most times I find 2 or 3 of the 1965 to 1970 coins in each five rolls. And when you think about it it’s a gamble you never lose because if none of the coins in the rolls contain silver you still retain the face value you exchanged for them.
It’s exciting to see what you’ll get and paying face value over spot value is a big win for me. Now that’s a gamble I can afford to take. Happy hunting. – Dan W.