Coin roll hunting

Coin roll hunting (often abbreviated "CRH") is the hobby of searching change pulled from circulation for collectible coins. These coins can come from several sources but the serious hobbiest usually obtains his coins from a bank in the form of rolled coins.

Coin roll hunters obtain -- in the U.S., rolls of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and sometimes dollars. They may also ask bank tellers if they have any old currency set aside. Hunters open the rolls and search for old or collectible coins to save for a collection or to sell for profit. They then return the unwanted coins, referred to as "rejects", to another bank. It is considered poor etiquette by CRH'ers to return rejects to the same bank they were picked up from. If a batch of coins contains nothing of interest, the hunter says he has "been skunked".

There are three main types of coin roll hunters; the composition hunter, the variety hunter, and the set hunter. Composition hunters hunt for precious metals (usually silver, sometimes copper). Variety hunters search for mint errors. Set hunters attempt to complete sets of a specific type of coin.

Prime targets of American coin roll hunters are silver dimes and quarters made before 1965, and silver half dollars from 1970 and earlier. Nickels are searched for silver "war nickels" (1942-1945) and older discontinued designs. Pennies are searched for wheat pennies (1909-1958) and the rare Indian Head penny (1859-1908). A few penny searchers save copper Lincoln Memorial cents (1959-1982), speculating on their future value as copper bullion. An occasional dime can also be found in penny rolls, giving the collector an instant bonus. The most common coin searched is the half dollar because of its low circulation volume. Since the coins have little or no turnover from hand to hand, they have been the best denomination choice for finding old and rare types. The half dollars from 1964 and earlier are composed of 90% silver, and the ones minted from 1965 through 1970 are 40% silver by composition. Silver prices rose dramatically in 2006, making silver coins worth about 8 to 10 times the face value. Toughening economic conditions have caused people to deposit long-held stashes of coins at banks, unaware of their value as collectibles.

Often coin roll hunters also collect special proof coins, exonumia, and coins from other nations.

The practice of coin roll hunting has also been extended to paper bills. Given that bills have much shorter lifespans than coins, older bills are much rarer to find in circulation. A fortunate hunter can still find United States notes and old-style notes (pre-1996). Due to a size reduction, bills older than 1928 are almost impossible to find "in the wild". Other hunters look for star bills, which contain a star at the end of the serial number. These bills have a small premium over face value if in pristine condition, especially if sequential star bills are found.

Tracking sorted coins

Some coin roll hunters mark, paint or deface coins in order to identify that a batch of coins has been searched. If many of that hunter's mark (or the marks of other hunters) are found in a supply of coins, this is an indicator that said batch has already been searched. However, given the large amounts of coin circulating in the United States, marking searched coins is unlikely to be effective unless done on a large scale.

Anti-CRH tactics

Some bank employees are not happy with coin roll hunters, and may use tactics to discourage coin roll hunting. Some banks charge handling fees to deposit or withdraw large amounts of coin. Banks are commonly charged processing fees by coin delivery services, and these charges are passed on to customers who handle large amounts of coin. Also some bank tellers are noted for being very rude to coin roll hunters, though this tends to vary from venue to venue. Bank employees have also been known to search through coins themselves between the time it is received by the bank and the time it is issued to the customer.

Another tactic banks use to deter the expense of handling large coin deposits is to require that coins for deposit be rolled in paper first. Additionally, they may require the depositor's account number to be written on each roll.

Coin roll hunters have responded to such tactics by using alternate means of returning rejects. Many have turned to self-service coin counting machines in bank lobbies, a service highly appreciated by coin roll hunters. Some use CoinStar or CoinMaster machines to process coins for a 8.9% fee. Others spend rolls of coins in everyday transactions.

CoinRollHunt.com - external website dedicated to the hobby