by George Edward Green III
Recently I posted an article about a literal ‘free lottery’; the ability to search rolls of coins for rare, easy to identify, silver coins worth much more than face value. In this article I noted that you can go to the bank and exchange dollars for rolls of coins, and for zero cost, search through them for valuable coins gthe bank probably doesn’t even care might be inside.
There’s a lot of different ways to accomplish the same thing with zero cost but here’s another; Vending machines. Next time you go to buy a Coke or Pepsi bring a few extra dollars; if you hit the return change button chances are you’ll get quarters. These machines aren’t setup to refund bills (and anyone who’s used one knows it’s a challenge enough to get on IN the machine!).
The advantage of this is the exposure to a wide variety of coin sources. At the bank you’re as likely to get a roll of coins a collector looked through as you are one with valuable silver coins. At a vending machine however even if your coin collecting competition has dropped coins he already knows are not very valuable, there is as much if not more of a chance that folks who wouldn’t know a valuable coin if you traded them a buck for a few were there too.
Just as in sales you want to be exposed to a variety of new customers from different groups to keep business booming if you’re looking for rare coins you want to get out and introduce yourself to as many new and unrelated sources as possible to maximize the size of your ‘market’. Grabbing a soda, and a few bucks worth of change from a vending machine is just one more way to go about this.
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A lot of folks I know play the lottery or scratch offs, always hoping to find some jackpot. As a financial advisor I always find it silly. Not to say I have never bought a scratch-off, but usually for fun, or because the day had been pretty lucky thus far. Another thing I’ve done though is investing, and not just in stocks, or mutual funds, but also real estate, precious metals, businesses, etc. A sort of tie in to that is coin collecting.
I would never describe myself as some sort of avid or professional coin collector but I d always check my change for re-1965 quarters, dimes, and half dollars as these are worth a fair bit more than their face value. I also keep jars to ill with pre-1982 pennies because people practically throw away pennies and pre-1982 pennies are worth more than face value due to their copper content.
Relatively recently I have started occasionally to get a roll of quarters or half dollars at the bank. The chances of finding a silver coin are small, but a lot better than your chances of winning something on a lotto ticket. Further with rare coins in circulation, often simply because a thief spent it for the face value rather than the collector’s value, it’s worth a shot.
You get the potential for massive appreciation. You get the thrill of going through from coin to coin each with a chance of epic win. And it’s FREE! And if you lose you still have your 10$ or whatever the coin roll costs, and you just roll em up and exchange it for another. It really is a free lottery, and with rare coins like a penny that recently was found and sold for over a million the chance for huge payouts exist (frankly no more silly a chance of jackpot than the lottery and again it’s bloody FREE).
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