Smarties Bar & Grill #77

I still don't have a Mercury dime. The numismatic value of a coin is somewhat like antique... Subjective to the buyer but you know you can always get spot price.

I have found several Indian Head nickels and a 1932 $1 silver certificate as well as probably a couple of dollars worth of silver quarters and dimes and several world war II nickels.

Never any telling what you find running a register. My boss knows that I'm always on the lookout and I buy everything at face value.

 

I have a knack for spotting them. Just like I can tell real gold on site the vast majority of the time that I see it.

Generally counterfeit bills jump out right away. I caught a $1 bill once did I know the lady probably didn't mean to pass me because she got it at one of the stores shadiest gas stations.

The appearance and the feel of the bill, are generally the dead giveaways.... Before you even get to looking for the strip and the hologram and the texture on the clothing.

I learned about silver quarters years ago which piqued my interest in collecting. I got about 70 some odd cent change back and when the coins hit my hand something didn't sound right with that 1964 quarter and at first I thought it was fake or made out of aluminum or something, that I learned what it was.

Roosevelt dimes are also silver up to 65, with 64 being the last year.

I hear there are a few very rare examples of a 65 Washington quarter that got minted by mistake. Those out to have some really decent collector value.

 

Also the Roosevelt dime and I believe every half dollar and whole dollar coin. The only exception being the Jefferson nickel. World war II ones are 30% silver but they have a higher collector value than that.

 

You know I was thinking that for every numismatic expert out there that there is an expert counterfeiter.

Let's say one of those coins that you spoke of above is worth a couple hundred thousand.... If an expert counterfeiter made that coin from genuine bullion and it had the exact dimensions and the exact weight and the exact stampings.... Do you think it could fool some of the world's foremost experts?

That would really send ripples and shock waves through the numismatic community.

 

I would like to be the guy that sorts through those coinstar machines that you see in grocery stores where you put in loose change and it spits out a ticket to go to the register and get paper money less the 12 cent per dollar counting fee or whatever it is now

 

I should add to this post that the $1 bill is the exception that does not have the strip inside of the bill.

There are also some bills that will show counterfeit with the marker but they are genuine. I don't know what the years are but I know that they are paper bills that are much older and they used to make the linen or whatever it is that they make the bill from, with a different material that the marker would tell you is counterfeit.

And as far as I know those bills also lack the strip inside.

Does anyone know if they still make $500 bills?

I would just as soon get a money belt and keep my life savings around my waist because it doesn't do me a damn bit of good keeping it in the bank. They pay a pitifully ridiculous amount of interest on your savings which of course they use to make money themselves

 

That’s big fear about the Chinese counterfeits. When they began, their product was laughable, but they have kept getting better, and they’ve been at it for almost 20 years. The saving grace for higher end collectors is that the Chinese seem to be happy making stuff like “circulated” counterfeit Morgan dollars for the flea market type trade. That market becomes more attractive to them as the price of silver rises. They make more profits from their junk because it has no silver in it.

Another game is to “salt” silver dollar rolls with counterfeits. Some of the coins are good, but a crook can boost their profits by putting a few counterfeits in the mix. Sometimes rolls are sold without looking at the coins, or they are given only a cursory inspection.

All of this has made certification mandatory for really expensive material. I saw an 1838 $5 gold from Charlotte, North Carolina Mint yesterday at a show. It was marked $23,000, and was not certified. The price may have been reasonable; I didn’t take the time to go over it. But the thought that immediately went through my mind and most any other experienced collector is, Why isn’t this certified? It would be to the seller’s advantage to have it done. Certification for something like that would cost a few hundred dollars, but you would get that money back when you sold the piece, if it’s genuine and reasonably well preserved.

 

I'm careful about taking rolled up change from customers unless it is a known customer. Even then sometimes I will run a magnet over the rolls of the coins and if anything sticks, something is wrong.

Of course the only exception would be a steel penny which I do look for in our $25 box of rolled pennies from the bank but I have yet to find one.

Generally I will find at least one wheat penny per shift but I do not open up lots of rolls anymore than i need for the drawer. On a really good night sometimes I will find three of them and sometimes I might go a week without finding any.

I have found several Indian Head cents over the last several years. Those are always exciting to find.

My boss was telling me that someone came in the store years ago and bought something whatever it was.... He paid with rolled up dimes and evidently was unaware that every single one of them was a silver dime.

Of course you automatically wonder whose coin collection they robbed when something like that occurs.

Been quite some time since I have found any silver. I wonder if going to the bank and purchasing rolled coin for coin roll hunting is worth your time anymore? It would seem like the bank would be pretty good at sorting out any silver or unusual coins.

 

I am not a big paper money collector, but off the top of my head, I can tell you that the U.S. government has not issued the $500 or $1,000 bill for many years. All of them are now collectors’ items that sell for well over face value.

The most dangerous counterfeits used to be $20. The crooks made them by washing $1 bills and overprinting them. That way they got the right paper. The design detail and portrait could be another matter.

North Korea got really good at making U.S. $100 bills. That’s why there are so many anti counterfeitering marks on the modem $100 with strips, watermarks and fancy ink that changes colors at different angles.

 

Yep. I got a counterfeit $50 bill working a registered over a decade ago. The marker said it was fine but when I went to look for the watermark and the strip it was a $5 bill.

I told them I could not take the bill because it was fake and they asked me how I could tell and I pointed it out and I was naive enough to hand it back to them and they made a show of saying oh we have to take this back to the check cashing place.

The scumbags knew exactly what they were doing and they were trying to rip off the salvation army. They bought something that cost about a dollar.

It is the best way to counterfeit because it is on real paper and probably 95% of cashiers rely on nothing but the marker never once looking for any strips or watermarks or raised texturing on the clothing.

Just did a brief search on $500 bills and the cheapest one I found was $1,800.

There is no reason why they should not make them for public use today, except for the fact that the government wants to do away with cash all together as soon as possible.

And people are playing right into it by just carrying that damn debit card and not having so much as two dollar bills in their wallet to rub together.

That will be a sad day for any sort of freedom we used to have because there will be no such thing as unreported or untaxed income such as from a garage sale or paying anyone under the table for doing odd jobs.

The authoritarians in high places probably get an erection thinking about the day this society goes totally cashless

 

Sometimes people roll coins up and take them to the bank not knowing what they are.

15 or 20 years ago, I was at the bank and the teller had 19 half dollar rolls sitting in front of her. I leaned over at looked at the end of one of them and saw Ben Franklin looking back at me. The last Franklin half dollar was issued in 1963, and they are all 90% silver.

I asked the teller what they were going to do with them. “Take them to the vault,” was the answer. I asked if I could buy them, and ended up with 19, $10 rolls of half dollars. I was still a dealer at the time. I went through them, found a few pieces that had a numismatic value and sold the rest for silver.

 

Here are my two recently acquired coins. The walking liberty is a 2010.

The Morgan is a 1904 and it does have a plastic protective case over it.

 

The heat is ON. Our thermometer says 90 degrees in the shade and it's gotta be withering in the open sun.

Probably the biggest revelation of this year's experiment with heat-resistant vegetables has been the zucchini. This is an Italian zuke called Cocozelle Italian or Cocozelle di Napoli, and I bought the seeds from Southern Expose Seed Exchange, which specializes in plants that grow well in the Southeast. This variety has been praised for its heat-resistance and production and the plants have been vigorous from day one.

This is a pic I took no more than 2 weeks ago:



And here's a couple pics of the same plants I took last night (that's a yard stick at bottom):





I planted the seeds exactly 1 1/2 months ago and right now they average about 2' tall by 3' wide and are going to get bigger and bushier. I think I saw what might have been the first little zuke on one of the plants this morning. I'm really impressed with these Cocozelles.

 

And you put a shade cloth over those?

 

It was thriving till I made the mistake of asking someone to weed eat the weeds around the tomatoes.. It was on the end of the row and now it is no more.
Starting the broken piece from another plant really worked.

 

I am afraid the heat is going to be a repeat of last year.. The warm up from winter was slow this year it seemed warm weather would never get here. Now I long for those cool days..never satisfied.

 

@JohnHamilton pictures of my recently acquired silver dollars.

I can also get a few of these from him if I'm interested. 1972 so I don't think there's much of any silver to speak of ( did post 1964 Kennedy halves, have like 20 or 30% silver ? )

I guess they're probably worth something because they are mint proof sets ? What do you think is a fair price for these?

* Edit....
Not sure how to get the photo to transfer from my text message. It's a hard plastic case with a Kennedy half dollar and a Lincoln sent a Roosevelt dime a Jefferson nickel and a Washington quarter

 

There was no silver in the Kennedy Half Dollars after 1970. The pieces dated 1965 to 1970 were 40% silver. They are worth more than melt, but the market for them seems quiet. There were 40% haves made for the Bicentennial, but those were sold as collector coins in three piece Proof and mint sets. The other two coins were a quarter and an Ike Dollar. Silver Proof coins in Proof sets have been issued since 1992. The mint sold those sets at premium prices. This year they are charging $130 for them.

The 1904-O dollar you bought is Mint State, but it’s a typical strike for the issue with no feather details on the eagle’s breast. There is a mint mark “O” in “DOLLAR” indicates that it was struck at the New Orleans Mint. It was a better date 60 years ago, but government issued many bags of them they had in storage in the early’60s. The dealer price guide (“The Coindealer Newsletter”) is in the $60 neighborhood. The certification from that coin dealer does not mean anything. The silver eagle is okay as a bullion coin.

 

Found a 1901 Indian Head cent the other night

 

Banks sure are nosy. I was in the lobby of mine and overheard a teller speaking to someone in the Drive-Thru and she said that she had a few questions and she asked the lady what she did for a living and then what her husband did for a living and then what she wanted to do with the money.

I would have said none of their business. Now if someone in the lobby overheard that and they were a bad person with bad intentions, they could follow them now knowing that they have a boatload of cash on them.

What the hell business is it of the bank?

 

Here is something helpful that I recently learned that might be useful to some....

When typing on a mobile phone, you can slide your finger on the space bar and it moves the cursor.

 

This is so very true. The number of people that do not grasp the basic concept of the left lane is infuriating. If someone is behind you or you are being passed on your right....
Speed up or get your ass over. If I'm on the interstate in the left lane I am going at least 80 mph and that is when there is no one behind me.

If there's someone behind me I'm either going to speed up or move over. I don't get what is so difficult to grasp about that concept.

I know they say the left lane is for passing only but I think the left lane is just fine for travel as long as you are keeping an eye on your rear view mirror. Sometimes I even go 95 on the interstate.... Don't tell the state trooper that. Lol

 

I did, 30-40% shade cloth - that was another part of my experiments - and they're thriving under there.

Pretty soon they'll outgrow that temporary enclosure and I'll put a little fence around them to keep the critters out. If I don't keep the shade cloth up I'll have to put some gourd netting over the top to keep the crows at bay. They're almost impossible to outwit so physical barriers are the only reliable way of preventing them from eating everything in the veggie garden.

 

Some of my tomatoes are getting to the point where the suckers are big enough (about 6" long) to cut and root. It's been so blistering hot - high of 98 tomorrow - I think I'll bring them inside and stick them in water instead of planting them outside in a small container of dirt.

 

Same thing here in the Mid-Atlantic. We had an unusually mild May and then the heat kicked up about a week before the Summer Solstice. Worse yet, it stopped raining shortly before the temps started soaring. Now the grass is getting brown, the ground is hard and the soil out in the sun is turning to dust. Mercifully, we got a nice downpour Sunday night but it's gotten hot again so hoping the High that was parked over the Southeast has moved along and we'll see more of the usual afternoon thunderstorm activity we ordinarily get this time of year. I'm a bit concerned for our farmers, too - a lot of them have young crops in their fields and these dry conditions are getting worrisome.