Silver in the streets...

joeykoins

Hi guy's, I know we tend to find Silver coins in/on/under CoinStar machines, but does anyone ever find Silver coins elsewhere? Like in the streets, fast food counters or tables, supermarket floors or what have you? I'm not talking buried in dirt or sand either. If I recall, I for one, have never found any sort of Silver coins but in the CoinStar Mach. Just wondering.-joey

Weiss

Two instances where I've "eyeballed" silver. Once I was walking along the side of one of my 1910-era properties next to what had once been a driveway. Nothing extraordinary about it. Looked down and there was a walking liberty half dollar, completely exposed, just lying there in the dirt.

Then a few years back I walked into one of my laundry rooms to get the quarters from the coin-ops (to look through for silver, no less ). Looked down and there was a dime lying there on the floor. Would have picked it up regardless, but I knew instantly it was silver.

Both pieces reside in my metal detected finds binder.

3keepSECRETif2rDEAD

Originally posted by: Weiss
Two instances where I've "eyeballed" silver. Once I was walking along the side of one of my 1910-era properties next to what had once been a driveway. Nothing extraordinary about it. Looked down and there was a walking liberty half dollar, completely exposed, just lying there in the dirt.

Then a few years back I walked into one of my laundry rooms to get the quarters from the coin-ops (to look through for silver, no less ). Looked down and there was a dime lying there on the floor. Would have picked it up regardless, but I knew instantly it was silver.

Both pieces reside in my metal detected finds binder.

...Way Cool!

Edit to add a true story: ok so about 5 or 6 Christmas's ago my wife and I went out to visit my pops on his compound. Halfway through the weeklong visit I started talking with pops about coins and such and then he said I could look through his box of silver and gold...I was stoked cause I knew that he had a lot of cool stuff that my Gramps had left for him in that box. Well he did indeed and also inside of the box were 2 full rolls of BU '54 Washington's and 5 full rolls of mixed BU Roosevelt dimes...and all 7 rolls had MY name on them!!!! Pops immediately said cool and told me that my Gramps had given them to me for Christmas one year when I was young and wouldn't have known what to do with them...he also let me have them of course and I still have them of course! Funny though that Gramps wrote on the rolls to "sell when silver hits $20 per oz"...lol should have listened

SamByrd

I pull silver from the tills at work now and then.

I also pull silver from other peoples change. I seen the coin below in a persons change as they were looking for exact change to pay for some items at the counter. I mentioned the old dime He tossed the coin at me and told me to give him a buck.

BryceM

My son found a BU 1964 Kennedy laying in the high school parking lot.

AUandAG

Back when silver was still circulating, circa 1964, I was in downtown Carson City celebrating New Years Eve with everyone in town. Those were the days when the locals all got together for Memorial Day, 4th of July, New Years, etc. Bands and drinking and just plain fun.

Well, it was about 4 in the morning when I decided to leave the Nugget for home. Car was across the street and down a few blocks. So, it being 4 a.m. and not a soul in sight I walked right down the middle of the main drag to my car. About 20 degrees and crunchy snow on the street, maybe two inches at the center line or so.

Low and behold I saw a silver dollar laying in the snow....picked it up. While bent over saw another and then another and then another. Found 39 silver dollars in a space of two blocks. Walked back and forth and up and down for thirty minutes and not a soul said a peep (don't remember even seeing one)....

Crazy as it sounds, it's a true story.

bob



No, don't still have them, I'm sure they got spent right away!

mustangmanbob

Couple recent ones:

This year: Periodically, I take the King Size Comforter to the Laundromat to wash.

I needed quarters, put in a $5, and when they were pinging down, there was that silver ping.

There were a couple in there. I kept on feeding the machine, and got most of a roll of silver quarters. My guess is that someone turned it in for a $10, not knowing what it was.

Couple years ago: McDonalds. I glance over the till when the drawer is opened, and there is an Ike Dollar (common) and a Peace Dollar, common date, I asked, and for $2, I got them both.

Best (or worst), got flamed for it on another board, at the Galleria Shopping Center in Dallas, a guy was ranting that they would not take his coin. The Galleria sells $50 gold plated Galleria cash coins. I gave 1 to my parents on their 50th anniversary. Anyway, I asked, and what he had was a AGE, which of course, has $50 on the back. I told him it was worth a lot of money, but he was there to buying, IIRC, a present for his wife. I gave him all the cash I had, but he would only take $50, as that was what he had given for the coin, or what he thought is was worth, too long ago. He just wanted $50 to buy whatever it was, not a LOT more later.

lordmarcovan

Here is my "silver in the street" story.



In 1980, I found a 1959-D silver Roosie in the parking lot of my grandmother's apartment complex here on Saint Simons Island, Georgia. I remember the time and place because she had just died and I guess we were cleaning out her apartment, but the coin had to have been randomly lost by someone else and was not part of her things. Even at age 14 in 1980 I was already a coin geek and detectorist and obsessed with finding silver, so unexpectedly finding it that way excited me.



Unfortunately the coin, though fairly sharp with perhaps EF+ details on the obverse, was roadkill on the reverse. It had lain heads-up on the asphalt and then gotten ground into the pavement when a car or two ran over it.



It had a distinctive series of gouges across the reverse.



I guess if I had looked at it philosophically at the time, it was a sign... on one hand, I was "all gouged up" about the death of my grandmother, as that was the first time I had lost someone so close to me. But on the other hand, it was sort of a small lucky event, and brightened up an otherwise sad day. I sort of felt like Grammy had something to do with it (though of course that is sentimental, superstitious, and silly. Grammy would've done better than some beat-up old dime.)



I lost the coin, but years later, after high school and a few years of college, I moved to Asheville, North Carolina in early 1987.



In 1989, I was visiting a friend (later girlfriend), and helping her roll up her loose change from a heavy one-gallon glass cider bottle full of coins.



You've probably guessed what is about to happen.



Near the bottom of that friend's jar of change, I found that very SAME roadkill dime!



There could be no doubt about it. It was the same coin, though separated by about nine years and nearly 400 miles from the time and place I'd found it. And I have a so-called "photographic memory" when it comes to coins.



My friend said I looked like I had "seen a ghost".



Remember that old movie called "Somewhere In Time" with Christopher Reeve, where he travels back in time from 1980 to 1912 to meet his true love, taking care to dress the part in period clothing, but gets undone when he reaches into his pocket and finds a 1979 cent he'd accidentally overlooked before he left on his time trip?



My face must have looked like his did in the movie.



Now, I know what you're going to say. Obviously I had somehow inadvertently brought the coin with me when I moved from Georgia to North Carolina, and it had somehow ended up in my friend's change jar. That's possible- even the likeliest explanation. But she said that jar had been in the closet for years, and remember, I rediscovered the roadkill dime near the bottom of the jar. And even if there is a rational explanation, you've got to admit it was pretty freaky.



I lost the coin again, but if it ever reappears, you can bet I will have a very superstitious reaction!



That's not the only time a coin has turned up in an unexpected place - there have been at least three occasions where a coin I owned later turned up on some dealer's website or something. But with numismatic collectible coins, it's a much smaller world. A random junk silver dime in circulation is a different story.



So that's the only time I've "eyeballed" a piece of silver on the ground, though I've dug hundreds of silver coins while detecting, and I've found a few (very few) others in change or rolls over the years.



No... wait... I also found a 1948 quarter on top of the ground in a really old, remote country cemetery once, oddly enough. But it was in a modern keychain bezel so had obviously been recently lost, probably by somebody who had it for a birthyear keepsake.



I have "eyeballed" Wheat cents three or four times, Buffalo nickels twice, and even a Roman Coin once! And none of those were recent drops, either.



But yeah... only two pieces of "silver in the street". And the graveyard quarter doesn't really count as "street", so it's just that one freaky, roadkill, boomerang dime.

TopographicOceans

Originally posted by: AUandAG
Back when silver was still circulating, circa 1964, I was in downtown Carson City celebrating New Years Eve with everyone in town. Those were the days when the locals all got together for Memorial Day, 4th of July, New Years, etc. Bands and drinking and just plain fun.
Well, it was about 4 in the morning when I decided to leave the Nugget for home. Car was across the street and down a few blocks. So, it being 4 a.m. and not a soul in sight I walked right down the middle of the main drag to my car. About 20 degrees and crunchy snow on the street, maybe two inches at the center line or so.
Low and behold I saw a silver dollar laying in the snow....picked it up. While bent over saw another and then another and then another. Found 39 silver dollars in a space of two blocks. Walked back and forth and up and down for thirty minutes and not a soul said a peep (don't remember even seeing one)....
Crazy as it sounds, it's a true story.
bob

No, don't still have them, I'm sure they got spent right away!

Back in those days you could use silver dollars in the slot machines

coindeuce

About two years ago, I stepped in to a 7-11 type convenience store after a day of slaving for the man, with intent to buy a tall barley pop. As I approached the register, the Muslim proprietor was deeply engrossed in afternoon prayer. I waited patiently for him to finish, and when he handed me change from the purchase, there flashed a bright 1964 Washington quarter. I half jokingly said "Thank you Sir, may I have another ?" He didn't quite understand the question, so I explained what he had just given in change. It was the only one in his register drawer.

lordmarcovan

Originally posted by: coindeuce

About two years ago, I stepped in to a 7-11 type convenience store after a day of slaving for the man, with intent to buy a tall barley pop. As I approached the register, the Muslim proprietor was deeply engrossed in afternoon prayer. I waited patiently for him to finish, and when he handed me change from the purchase, there flashed a bright 1964 Washington quarter. I half jokingly said "Thank you Sir, may I have another ?" He didn't quite understand the question, so I explained what he had just given in change. It was the only one in his register drawer.

That happened to me at a convenience store (minus the barley pop and the Muslim prayer).



A bright 1964 Washington quarter. I asked the clerk, and there were six or seven more in the drawer. I forget how many now. But all were 1964, with a solitary 1964-D, if I remember correctly. They were XF-AU-ish, not BU, but nice and lustrous.



Another time I got a couple of black, grubby War nickels in change. There were seven or eight more in the till. The clerk was indulgent of my whims and not too busy, so we waited while the time release safe disgorged several more rolls, one at a time, and I checked them. Four or five rolls were almost exclusively early Jeffs, and probably 80% War nickels. All of them were blackish and greasy, as if they had lain in the oily water of somebody's boat bilge, but hey- I'll take silver at face value any way I can get it.

WillieBoyd2

I was visiting my mom at her place around 2004 when she asked me to check the top closet shelf as she had seen something up there.

I did and found several rolls of silver US half-dollars, quarters, and dimes, along with 107 Eisenhower dollars.

My grandmother had lived in the place, was known to save old coins, and we concluded that she must have left them there.

joeykoins

WoW! What cool stories guys. All you that had a story to share don't have to check the CoinStar machines, your lucky enough already from your past finds.
Rob, I remember that Christopher Reeves movie as well. "Somewhere in Time". Good love story movie. When Reeves, pulled out that penny, that was the turning point of the movie. He should have pulled out his loupe and at least check that penny for an error/variety!

JCLIGHTBRIGADE

Last was a 64 quarter in change at the gas station...I just heard it.

ajaan

Recently at the book sale in our school's library a student paid with a 1964 Kennedy. Our librarian collects coins so he immediately knew what it was.

lordmarcovan

Originally posted by: joeykoins

WoW! What cool stories guys. All you that had a story to share don't have to check the CoinStar machines, your lucky enough already from your past finds.

Rob, I remember that Christopher Reeves movie as well. "Somewhere in Time". Good love story movie. When Reeves, pulled out that penny, that was the turning point of the movie. He should have pulled out his loupe and at least check that penny for an error/variety!

Glad I ain't the only one who remembered it. Thanks to YouTube and being able to rewatch that scene for the first time in decades, it looks so dated now. But yeah, I liked it, smarmy and saccharine though it was. Always loved a good time travel flick.



(For those who haven't seen it, he doesn't use a machine to travel back to 1912, really. Its more like self-hypnosis. Which is why finding the 1979 penny in his 1912 suit pocket messes everything up. He bought the vintage suit in an antique store before leaving 1980, but chose poorly and got something more like an 1890s suit which was outdated in 1912, which is why she teases him in that scene. If I remember correctly, there is a coin shop scene, too, where he buys period-appropriate pocket change before the time trip, but he mistakenly forgets to remove the 1979 cent. Its a good movie, in a dated chick-flick sorta way. But now you have the spoiler.)

ricko

Some great stories here.... I like these threads.... About 8 years ago, my Mom said.."I know you collect coins, look at these." She handed me a metallic box (like an old mini tool box) and inside were 23 Eisenhower dollars.... she had saved them years ago... none were of collector value though, so she gave them to the grand children at Christmas time. Cheers, RickO

derryb

school lunchrooms have the best best silver treasure.

lordmarcovan

Originally posted by: derryb

school lunchrooms have the best best silver treasure.

Not so much silver in my old school cafeteria, but when they recently tore down the old 1950s middle school after building a new one on a different site, they found something, right below where our school lunchroom had been.



And to think how many times I ate lunch there as an eighth-grader, and daydreamed about history...

rte592

I find a piece now and again in the wild, But I get way more from the ladies at the bank windows.

I made it a point to ask if they have anything interesting when I go in....They save what they can for me and they usually have something interesting each month or better.



Pays to make friends with the ladies.

I also make it a point to show and tell some of the new silver bars when I happen to have one on me.

I also say thank YOU and IF they get something in they can always call and I'll make a special trip to see them

oih82w8

I busted open a roll of dimes and found two mercury's (1935-D and 44-P0) winking at me.

joeykoins

I almost forgot my experience in finding Silver in the wild (streets). I used to work as a maintenance man for a 30 story apartment building in downtown Chicago. This was when I first started collecting. Back in 1984, my job was to empty out the vacant apartments. When I say empty out I mean to trash out the old carpet and other things left behind. Well, when I was lifting up one of the parts of carpet in the closet, underneath I found a few coins! Out of all the five coins, I found a 1950 Roosevelt Dime, along with three Wheaties and the most appealing of the five, I found an old Large Cent 1849! Pretty cool find I guess? I forgot about it until I, myself, brought this thread into play!-joey
One more thing... The person leaving these coins under the carpet, must of thought that the coins were really high in value to hide 'em as such? The total value of all five were approx. $50!