IDXMonster
Elite Member
What are some places you have thought of to find silver coins that you don’t have to pay for AND ACTUALLY FOUND THEM? We will take a few places “off the table” because they’re common and obvious....
1) Coin Rolls....out
2) Circulation....out
3) Existing family collections...out
Being an auto mechanic, I thought of this one awhile ago but I’ll bring it up again if I didn’t before. In ALL states we obviously have cars...and eventually those cars go out of service. Today, around here, by the time a car goes out of service because of age, it is inevitably a huge rotten and rusty turd. These cars get squashed immediately and recycled completely. Others with crash damage are taken apart for their good parts and squashed. HOWEVER....back in the day(early 1920’s-1970’s) they were taken to a traditional “junkyard”....basically a farm field that was a parking lot for old decrepit vehicles that could still be picked over by us “gear head vultures” who wanted to keep our car going. These “junkyards” that were smaller in rural areas still collectively have millions of cars sitting around from the time when silver was in circulation, and we all know how many coins can get lost in cars! EVERY time I have to have a seat out of a car to access a fuel pump or put in a seat belt or put in some rear struts....I find coins. EVERY TIME. The total number of silver coins in these old cars had to be mind boggling, but it takes someone to be able to search for them.
Some junkyards are “pick your own parts” while others may not allow customers into the yard itself. You would simply have to be aware of who is who and if you see an old car sitting out in the woods or in an old junkyard that you can legitimately access, it’s just another idea for finding older coins.
I’m not going to include any cautionary advice other than to use common sense, old cars are havens for wildlife of all kinds.
What is YOUR “ace in the hole” and fun place to search?
1) Coin Rolls....out
2) Circulation....out
3) Existing family collections...out
Being an auto mechanic, I thought of this one awhile ago but I’ll bring it up again if I didn’t before. In ALL states we obviously have cars...and eventually those cars go out of service. Today, around here, by the time a car goes out of service because of age, it is inevitably a huge rotten and rusty turd. These cars get squashed immediately and recycled completely. Others with crash damage are taken apart for their good parts and squashed. HOWEVER....back in the day(early 1920’s-1970’s) they were taken to a traditional “junkyard”....basically a farm field that was a parking lot for old decrepit vehicles that could still be picked over by us “gear head vultures” who wanted to keep our car going. These “junkyards” that were smaller in rural areas still collectively have millions of cars sitting around from the time when silver was in circulation, and we all know how many coins can get lost in cars! EVERY time I have to have a seat out of a car to access a fuel pump or put in a seat belt or put in some rear struts....I find coins. EVERY TIME. The total number of silver coins in these old cars had to be mind boggling, but it takes someone to be able to search for them.
Some junkyards are “pick your own parts” while others may not allow customers into the yard itself. You would simply have to be aware of who is who and if you see an old car sitting out in the woods or in an old junkyard that you can legitimately access, it’s just another idea for finding older coins.
I’m not going to include any cautionary advice other than to use common sense, old cars are havens for wildlife of all kinds.
What is YOUR “ace in the hole” and fun place to search?
removed the bins from two vacuum collection units at the carwash. The employee carelessly attempted to dump the bins into large black trash bags, but even from across the street I could see the bin contents falling everywhere but into the trash bags. Fifteen minutes later I went over to the vacuums and looked in the grass and on the pavement: French fries, Cheerios, Goldfish crackers, Legos, pens, pencils, crayons, candy chunks, batteries, straws, ear buds, food wrappers, and $3.78 in coins - mostly quarters and pennies! I'll admit it, since then I regularly scout and collect at carwashes/vacuum units the way a couple of the members here collect at the Coinstar machines. 
