Fun way to make a few bucks

[cbr shadow]

I was walking out of my bank the other day and struck up a conversation with a guy loading a huge box of 1/2 dollar coins into his car.  He explained that he makes money by sorting through the half dollars to find the real silver ones.  After talking for a bit he hesitantly showed me how you can quickly sort through them!  The real silver 50 cent pieces are worth $5 each if they're 1965-1969, and $12 each if they're 1964 or before. 
To sort then you dont have to look at the dates.. you just cut the roll of coins on the side and quickly scan for the ones that have a smooth edge rather than the knurled (bumpy) edge.  It's a very fast way to check them.

So as a Mustachian I had to ask him what kind of return he was getting..  he said he takes out $1000 worth of half dollar coins every week, and of those 2,000 coins ($1000) he'll normally get 5-7 silver coins, about half of those being the 1964 or earlier..  That means making $50-60 per week doing this, or $200-250/month.  Huge amounts of money?  No... but it's fun!  A friend and I did it last weekend and it was a blast.  We only found 5 coins in our group, but we had a good time and made a few bucks.  Also you can filter through the 2,000 coins very quickly.

It goes without saying that you would then take the rest of the half-dollars back to the bank to deposit them into your account.

If you're bored and want to make a few extra bucks, give it a try!

Note: The guy I spoke to said there are plenty of people who do this exact thing aleady, so the real silver coins are becoming more rare..  So in 5 years this type of thing might not be practical.

[Jack]

The same sort of thing can be done with nickels and pennies too these days, but I think the government considers it to be illegal (especially if you melt the desirable coins down so that they're no longer "currency").

[totoro]

Dog walking/sitting?  This is what my kids are interested in doing lately.  See how it goes.

I'm interested in setting up a bartering group.  It doesn't make cash but you could save a lot on food/cooked meals/house services and it could be fun.  We fish and garden and would be open to all sorts of trades. I'm still thinking about how to do this as I'm not super extroverted - or super organized.  My parents do this but it came natural because my dad was in a trade and was always being asked to trade services - doesn't come so easy as a professional. 

[cbr shadow]

Jack, it's not illegal to find the silver coins and sell them for more than their worth as their intended value.  I'm not talking about smelting, just finding the coins and selling them.

[Sparafusile]

Just a few hints from an experienced numismatist:

• Do not drop your unwanted half dollars off at the same bank you picked them up at. Tellers wont like it and you'll pollute the pool you pull from.
• You can tell if a coin is silver just by looking at the edge. Don't see any copper? It's silver.
• What cbr shadow was talking about was the 90% silver half dollars which were only minted up to 1964. What most people don't tell you is, due to the popularity of Kennedy, beginning in 1964 and lasting through 1970 the half dollars were minted with 40% silver. Still worth a nice premium over their face value.
• Half dollars weren't the only coin minted with real silver. Dimes and quarters also had 90% silver up to 1964. Nickels also had silver from 1942-1945.
• If you wanted to, you could also sort cents prior to 1982 which contained more copper than the cents of today. They are worth from 2.5-3 cents each.
• All nickels are worth more than their face value due to the price of copper. If you wanted to, you could avoid sorting and just buy a box of nickels ($100).

Here's a site you can use to find the value of common coinage: http://www.coinflation.com/silver_coin_values.html

Just for the record, there is no such thing as a US penny. They are cents. The penny was a British coin.

[stevedoug]

... The real silver 50 cent pieces are worth $5 each if they're 1965-1969, and $12 each if they're 1964 or before.  ...

How does one sell them? ebay? Coin shop?

If selling them takes too much time, for some people the ROI may not be there.

Thanks!

[cbr shadow]

To be honest I'll have to ask my friend how he sells them, since I have only just started doing this and haven't looked into selling yet haha.
The ROI is probably not there.  This isn't a replacement for doing other side-jobs that pay fairly well.. I shared this idea because it's more of something to do for fun that pays a bit as well.  When you factor in the time to call the bank to make the coin order, pick them up, sort (sorting is fast actually), then after you've collected a bunch of them selling them, you're probably not making a lot of money per hour..  Definitely not the $50/hr that MMM usually looks for.

[TomTX]

See if you can find individuals who want to invest in silver. Typically they have to pay a dealer at least 3% over "spot" price. If you sell to a dealer, typically you will get paid no more than 5% under "spot."

[hands2work]

I would love to set up a barter group.  A few years ago I sold women's clothes but when my manufacturer went bankrupt I lost the business.  While it lasted I had a perfect barter item, I could trade for lots of things.  Now all I really have is my ability to crochet gorgeous baby afghans, which is nice, but not everyone needs a baby afghan, or at least not all the time.  It makes me wish I could cut hair or decorate cakes or something.

I've been thinking about knocking on the doors in my neighborhood and seeing if anyone else is interested.

[Will]

• Do not drop your unwanted half dollars off at the same bank you picked them up at. Tellers wont like it and you'll pollute the pool you pull from.

What do you do?  Go into a bank and ask to buy a box of half dollars?  Do they really have boxes of them sitting around?[/list]

[cbr shadow]

It depends on the bank, but usually they put in an order for you.  They'll order the money and you pay them for it when it comes in.  Most banks are happy to do this for their customers.  The bank that will NOT like you is the bank you take all of the change back to :).  I opened a TCF account just for this purpose. 

[unitsinc]

This seems fairly similar to the idea of buying coins from the mint(at face value+free shipping) on rewards cards and then turning the coins into the bank.

So many good ideas for a bit of extra cash and maybe some fun.

[destron]

This seems fairly similar to the idea of buying coins from the mint(at face value+free shipping) on rewards cards and then turning the coins into the bank.

By doing this you are, rather inefficiently, leeching money from the system at large. It costs the mint money to send you the coins and to process the credit card so you can get your rewards. In other words, you are taking advantage of a good natured system (the mint) to steal tax money for a tiny gain. Not to mention it is bad for the environment to needlessly ship around coins.

[unitsinc]

This seems fairly similar to the idea of buying coins from the mint(at face value+free shipping) on rewards cards and then turning the coins into the bank.

By doing this you are, rather inefficiently, leeching money from the system at large. It costs the mint money to send you the coins and to process the credit card so you can get your rewards. In other words, you are taking advantage of a good natured system (the mint) to steal tax money for a tiny gain. Not to mention it is bad for the environment to needlessly ship around coins.

I'm aware. I haven't used it. It's most commonly done on credit cards with mileage rewards after X number of dollars in X time period. So if you can't spend enough money in time(most likely due to frugality) this is a workaround to still get the reward miles.

[cbr shadow]

That loophole was fixed when the mint decided not to allow credit card purchases of currency.  This is no longer an issue.