What Is Your Silver Endgame?

The start of a new year usually brings with it the desire to either change mistakes or unsuccessful strategies made in the past, or to revisit reasons and goals that have been made to provoke original motivations. The new year has made my brother and I engage in many of these actions. We set out our coin roll hunting goals and silver stacking goals for 2014, given the success that goal-setting has provided in the past. However, we have also been reviewing the reasons for why we began to embark on going through coins, looking for ones that are worth more than their face value die to their metal composition, as well as purchase silver. During this review we have discussed what our silver endgame is; more specifically, to what ends are we working towards and when will we ever part with what we have been collecting?

The fact that we have been coin roll hunting and silver stacking in order to protect our wealth from the inflationary monetary and fiscal policies being followed today plays a very important role in answering this question for myself. Due to this ultimate goal and strategy, we are not focusing on a time specific endgame in regards to our silver and copper pennies. By time specific, I mean that I do not have a specific time frame, ounce accumulation over a specific time period or price target that would cause me to sell. For example, I am not firmly committed to holding my silver until retirement, which is likely to be 30 years down the road. It may be the case that this occurs, and it will made sense to hold throughout my entire life, but I am not entrenched on this position.

Rather, my endgame is focused more on the events that are occurring, namely, any events that show a move away from an inflationary driven-policy or where silver keeps its value in relation to the dollar to the point where it becomes an overvalued asset. Of course, there is no way for me to predict when any of this will happen. Also, there is no one specific event that would trigger me to sell. For example, a full reduction in quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve, while a move towards a tighter monetary policy, would not be a sufficient condition for me to get out of precious metals, copper pennies or 99.9% nickel nickels, particularly when interest rates are still artificially suppressed near zero. But I am prepared for the possibility that when events dictate that precious metals are overvalued, or where I can move into a wealth generating asset from the purely wealth protecting asset of precious metals.

This being said, I do not think that these events are imminent and I am currently focused on accumulation at this point. This is more of a discussion point for my brother and I am this point and we are very flexible going forward. I posted this question on my YouTube channel and received some amazing answers from those who viewed the video. Throwing out these questions and discussing them is always a fun, thought provoking exercise for us, so we would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. What is your silver endgame?

Silver Stacking Goals For 2014 - Journey to 100 Ounces

Although this blog strongly focuses on coin roll hunting, we have also been committed to purchasing silver over the last few years. We are purchasing silver (and hopefully some gold in the future) for many of the same reasons that we coin roll hunt. At the forefront, however, is to protect our wealth from the current monetary and fiscal policies that the world is embarking on, which we see as inflationary. Although there is no telling what could happen in the future, we see putting some money into silver as a responsible and positive action to take for ourselves.

In 2013, we had great results in adding to our silver stack. We were aided by the fact that we had set a goal, in September, of purchasing 1 ounce of silver every month for the remainder of the year. The primary reason that we are setting our our coin roll hunting and silver goals for 2014 is based on the success that doing so has provided us in the past. We ended up going over and above the goal and were able to add 24 total ounces of silver during 2013. Although this doesn't seem like a lot, and probably isn't compared to many of those who also stack silver, this was by far our most successful year and we were able to double our silver stack. We are going in the right direction and hope to keep the momentum going in 2014.

We have set a fairly bold (for us) silver goal for the upcoming year. We are going to try to add 100 ounces of silver in 2014. Like our 2014 coin roll hunting goal, we believe that it is both reasonable and realistic. However, it will take a little bit more work and sacrifice on our part to be successful, since it will be more difficult than adding 100 pounds of nickel bullion. That being said, we will have fun along the way and be sure to track the journey on our YouTube channel and on this blog.

If you have made a target goal for your silver stack in 2014, let us know in the comment section below, as we would be very interest in hearing what you are aiming for. We hope that whatever you goal is in terms of silver, that you have a lot of fun during the journey and are left with many rewards outside of the additions to your silver stack. All the best to you in 2014!

Coin Roll Hunting Goals For 2014 - Journey to 100 Pounds of Nickel Bullion

Now that we have started the new year, we have decided to lay out our coin roll hunting goals for 2014. If you are new to the blog, we have been coin roll hunting through boxes of pennies, nickels and dimes in order to try to find older coins that are worth more for their metal value in relation to their face value. It is an extremely enjoyable hobby and we are hoping that it helps to ensure that we protect ourselves during the current inflationary monetary and fiscal environment that we are currently living in. Far from a get rich scheme, we hope that the little effort we put into the hobby today will yield some reward in the future.

However, with the termination of the Canadian penny in 2013, it does not leave us with many options in regards to what we can search through these days. For this reason, we are focusing our goal on nickels and searching for 99.9% nickel nickels. Therefore, in 2014, our goal is to try to collect 100 pounds of nickel bullion during the year. We will be looking for nickels minted before 1982, since the nickels during these years were made purely from nickel. Even with the price of nickel being low these days, the 99.9% nickel nickels are still worth more than their 5 cent face value, and made sense for us to try to collect.

This is a reasonable goal for us and is a realistic target to aim for. We were not entirely happy with our coin roll hunting results in 2013, as it was probably our worst year since we began in 2010. This was mainly due to the sporadic nature that we were coin roll hunting through boxes of coins. In order to remedy this, we have placed a standing order with the bank in order to receive boxes of nickels week-to-week. This makes coin roll hunting infinitely easier as we have to go to the bank and pick up the box, rather than go through the entire process when we are available to coin roll hunt. Although no specific element of coin roll hunting is particular onerous or difficult, having a weekly order has made coin roll hunting much easier in the past and should assist us greatly in our 2014 goal.

We are also going to try to go through boxes of dimes throughout 2014, but due to the lack of success in the past, we are setting a goal of trying to go through one box of dimes a month, for a total of twelve during the year. If we are experiencing better results, or are finding that we can put a little more time into dimes, then we might reconsider increasing this as 2014 progresses.

I believe that my brother and I have set some realistic coin roll hunting goals for 2014. It is important to note that coin roll hunting is a hobby that we both immensely enjoy. We don't see it as a way to get rich. Getting to spend some time together, discussing economics or other interesting topics, is reward enough. Also, we have been amazed at how welcoming and great the coin roll hunting community is on YouTube, and it offers us a chance to interact with those who also find coin roll hunting to be a great hobby.

I look forward to a fun and exciting 2014, and tracking our progress on this blog to let you all know our results and how the goals are going. We would be interested to hear what your goals are if you have made them for 2014. I wish you all a wonderful 2014!

Nickel Coin Roll Hunting Finds From Box #37

Anyone who has been coin roll hunting for any substantial period of time knows that banks do not always have coins available to give you during busy periods, Christmas being one of those periods. This is what happened to us recently when we walked into a local bank in order to try to pick up a box of nickels in order to search for Canadian nickels before 1982. Quite understandably, the bank could not spare to handout a full box, however, the teller was extremely generous and was able to allow us to leave with $40 in nickels! She didn't have to do this and we were very grateful for the rolls we could get our hands on.

The results that we received made us appreciate her kindness even more! Although we were not able to find any pre-1963 Canadian nickels or pre-1960 American nickels, we had one of our best nickel bullion percentages in a long time. We ended up with 78 99.9% nickel nickels in total, which worked out to be 9.75%! It has been a while since we have received that good of a rate, so it was pretty exciting to be finding so many of them. In fact, we found one more 99.9% nickel nickel in this box than we did in the previous $100 worth of nickels. Here are the results for this box:

$40 Worth of Nickels
-Pre-1982 99.9% nickel nickels: 78 (9.75%)
-Pre-1963 Canadian nickels: 0
-Pre-1960 American nickels: 0

This $40 worth of nickels was definitely a reminder for us that sometimes it is better to get your hands on whatever amount you can when a full box isn't available, in addition to showing that there is still the potential to receive a high percentage of nickel bullion in any box. You just have to be patient and enjoy yourself during the less plentiful boxes. Thanks to this very generous teller, we were able to keep adding to our nickel collection and enjoy a little bit a fun with our coin roll hunting hobby.

Let us know in the comment section below how your searches are going as we begin 2014. I hope all of your searches are going great!

Nickel Coin Roll Hunting Finds From Box #36

We have been lucky to have had the time to do quite a bit of nickel coin roll hunting over the Holidays. As I have mentioned before, with the termination of the Canadian penny last year, we have focused on trying to get as many 99.9% nickel nickels as we can. The results from this box were not the best in terms of the nickel bullion within the rolls, but we were able to add 77 99.9% nickel nickels to our collection, in addition to four pre-1963 Canadian nickels and two pre-1960 American nickels. The best find that we had in this box was a 1940 King George VI nickel. It is not very often that we get to find a King George VI nickel, so it is always exciting for us whenever we come across one.

We have found that our numbers for the 99.9% nickel nickels has steadily decreased over the last few years, so we are lowering our expectations for each specific box. Rather than the typical 10% yield of two years ago, we anticipate there being between 6-8% nickel bullion nickels in the average box. Even at this level, we still find coin roll hunting nickels to be a very enjoyable hobby and worth the time and effort. Here are the results from this box:

$100 Nickel Box #36
-Pre-1982 99.9% nickel nickels: 77 (3.85%)
-Pre-1963 Canadian nickels: 4 (1940, 1960, 1962x2)
-Pre-1960 American nickels: 2 (1947, 1953)

I've gone through a number of boxes over the last few weeks, so I look forward to sharing the results from these nickel boxes with you. My brother and I have discussed our 2014 coin roll hunting goals, particularly as it relates to nickels. I will put this video out in the coming days and explain the journey we have planned in the new year. How are all of your coin roll hunting searches going and what have been some of your best finds recently?

Effect of Fed Taper on Silver and Gold

FTIdeas threw out a great question on his YouTube Channel: What effect with the Fed's recent $10 billion taper have on gold and silver? I find the whole topic infinitely fascinating, so decided to dedicate a video to the topic. I did not want to bore everyone with a long, uninteresting economic answer, but I did point out how I am more inclined to focus on the long term effects of the monetary policy behind quantitative easing rather than the short-term, fly-by-night taper debates. I believe that long-term, the consequences have already been created by the creation of $2.5 trillion (yes, with a "T") in excessive reserves. For me, it isn't a matter of "if" those excess reserves will lead to price inflation and a resulting lift in the price of silver and gold, but "when."

However, as always, that is just my opinion and you would not be wise to take investment advice from a guy who collects copper pennies in his spare time. Visit the video above if you would like to hear a longer explanation of this topic from me, or start with the links below to see FTIdeas' original video or to begin or own investigation of the topic.

I finished two more nickel boxes today, so expect to see the results from those boxes in the very near future. How are all of your searches doing as we approach the end of the year?

Links:
FTIdeas' original video
Excess Reserves Totals from the Fed
Interesting Article on the Topic

Coin Roll Hunting Finds From Nickel Box #35

With the Canadian penny now eliminated, we have been focusing on coin roll hunting as many nickels boxes as we can. We are looking for any pre-1982 Canadian nickels, as well as older pre-1963 12-sided, King George VI and King George V nickels. Our 35th nickel box was a very interesting one that contained many varieties of the older coins we are looking for. Here are our results from this box:

$100 Nickel Box #35
-Pre-1982 99.9% nickel nickels: 157 (7.85%)
-Pre-1963 nickels: 11 (1927, 1929x2, 1937, 1945x3, 1961x2, 1962x2)

We found some great King George V nickels, including a 1927 and two 1929s. We have also added to our Canadian wartime nickels with three 1945 chrome-plated steel nickels. We do not get too many of these nickels, so anytime we find even one it is very exciting.

Since we are off for the holidays until January we are going to try to coin roll hunt as many nickel boxes as we can. As always, we will share the results with you all. Let us know how your coin roll hunting is going and we hope that you are having a great holiday! Best of luck in your future searches!

Adding to the Silver Stack: Silvertowne Purchase

One of the effects of the Canadian penny being terminated this past February is that it allowed us to move some of our money away from coin roll hunting pennies and towards adding to our silver stack. In a previous post I mentioned that in order to be successful, we needed to commit to a goal instead of making inconsistent silver purchases while waiting for unpredictable dips. As I discussed in that post, our goal is to purchase at least 1 ounce of silver every month.

In the commitment to this goal, our September silver purchase consisted of a 1 ounce bar from Silvertowne. This is the first time that I have made a purchase form Silvertowne, although I have been aware of them for a few years now. In fact, my brother and I almost made our first silver purchase from them back in May 2011. Silvertowne is a site that is very beneficial to our current goals. They offer free shipping on items that we are most interested in, such as generic silver bars and Canadian Maple Leafs. Free shipping is essential since our purchases are so small. If it wasn't for the free shipping, most of our money would be eaten up by the shipping costs, which would significantly decrease our potential silver stack. Although this particular purchase took a little over 3 weeks to get here, it is more than worth it in order to obtain our silver this efficiently.

Check out the video above in order to see this month's silver purchase. Also, let us know in the comment section if you have ever ordered from Silvertowne and how your silver stacking goals are proceeding.

Copper Penny Hoarding - Coin Roll Hunting Results #1

In a previous post, I mentioned that my brother and I were going to look back through our copper penny and 99.9% nickel coin roll hunting results and share them with you here on our blog. Not only did we think that it would be beneficial since it is always fun to see what people get from coin roll hunting through boxes of coins, but also from the standpoint of seeing how our results change over time. From a personal standpoint, I also like to see how our earlier videos turned out as it is the first time that I am seeing them in months.

The video above, you can see the results from two $25 penny boxes. If you are not familiar with coin roll hunting, it might be surprising to know that my brother and I went through 5,000 pennies trying to pick out specific coins. However, since the pre-1997 Canadian pennies have a metal value much higher than their 1 cent face value, we feel that this has the potential to make economic sense. A part from that, it is also a wonderful hobby that is exciting and allows for some excellent conversations to take place. Here are the results from these boxes:

$25 Penny Boxes #1 and #2:
- 2,148 copper pennies (42.96%)
- 14 American Wheat cents
- 8 Canadian King George VI pennies

These were the first results that we put on video and they, along with the amazing feedback that we received, really helped to motivate us to continue making videos for our YouTube channel. The coin roll hunting community is made up of great individuals who are passionate about the hobby. If you would like to learn more about coin roll hunting, just visit the pages off to the right or do not hesitate to ask in the comment section.

As always, let us know what you are hunting and how your searches are going in the comments below.

This Weekend's Nickel Coin Roll Hunting Results

As I mentioned last week, my brother and I have decided to get back into coin roll hunting Canadian nickels on a more consistent basis. Other than being a great hobby allowing for some excellent conversations and excitement, we do this because the melt value of pre-1982 Canadian nickels is significantly higher than their 5 cent face value since they are made from 99.9% nickel. From a value standpoint, these pre-1982 Canadian nickels standout from the modern day steel nickels. But to get back into nickel coin roll hunting consistently, we had to start with our first box in 9 months, and we were fortunate enough to do so this weekend.

If you watch our video from this search, you'll notice that before I started I had mentioned that I did not know exactly what to expect from a percentage standpoint. When we took a hiatus about 9 months ago, our results were fairly unpredictable. The valuable Canadian nickels mentioned above typically ranged between 5% and 10%, with the majority of our boxes falling closer to the low end of that range. Although there shouldn't have been a dramatic change in the past 9 months, I am well aware of the fact that the Canadian government and the Royal Canadian Mint is actively trying to cull these nickels out of circulation, making them a formidable competitor of ours.

However, our results left my brother and I extremely happy and confident to continue with our goal of jumping back into nickel coin roll hunting. Here are our results from this weekend:

$100 Canadian Nickel Box #31
- 178 99.9% nickels (8.9%)
- 16 pre-1963 12-sided Canadian nickels
- 1 1942 King George VI nickel

As you can see, we found an excellent percentage of 99.9% nickels, in addition to being very fortunate to find 17 pre-1963 Canadian nickels, including a 1942 King George VI nickel! I look forward to searching through our next box and, as always, sharing our results with you.

What are you guys searching through this week and how are your coin roll hunts going?

Getting Back Into Nickel Coin Roll Hunting

I have always loved coin roll hunting through $100 boxes of nickels to look for 99.9% nickel Canadian nickels. These are the Canadian nickels minted before 1982. My brother and I first found out about these pure bullion nickels as a result of our love for copper pennies, and we instantly decided that we should take advantage of this great opportunity to expand from copper pennies into nickel nickels.

However, with the Harper government's decision to discontinue the Canadian penny, our recent focus has been to try to acquire and coin roll hunt through as many boxes of Canadian pennies as we could. During the summer, we made our way through 14 boxes of Canadian pennies. As I mentioned in the previous post on this blog, our attention has also been on trying to establish our silver goals and prepare for how we can be successful with these goals. These two circumstances have led to the unfortunate fact that we have not searched through a single box of nickels during the past eight months.

Now that we are finished with our pennies boxes and have our silver goals crystallized, we are going to jump back into coin roll hunting nickels to once again take advantage of the little known fact that the melt value of pre-1982 Canadian nickels are worth substantially more than their face value. It will be interesting to see if the percentages of 99.9% nickels is still around the 10% mark in each box, but I suspect that it will have fallen in the period since our last hunt. Nonetheless, my brother and I are extremely excited to begin coin roll hunting through nickels once again. In fact, we already have our first box and plan to obtain a few more to search through during the Thankgiving weekend. Although we no longer have our boxes of pennies to go through, we are thankful that one of our favourite hobbies can still occur through boxes of nickels.

If you would like to see the results from our new boxes, or from any of our past boxes, visit our YouTube Channel. Also, let us know in the comment section below what you are coin roll hunting through these days. Best of luck in your searches this week!

My Silver Stacking Goals - Embracing the Micro Purchases

My strategy for purchasing silver up to this point has been to try to save up enough money so that in times of a drop in price, I could make a small purchase of about three or four ounces. Although I have been able to accumulate roughly twenty ounces through this method, it has resulted in sporadic purchases and long waiting periods between buys. Not only is this standing in the way of my goal to try to put 10% of my wealth in precious metals, it is also leaving me paralyzed on the sidelines as I wait for the next dip in price, of which I could never know of or anticipate before hand.

Because this strategy has not been working for me, my brother and I decided that it was time to employ a different goal. After much consideration, we decided that it would be best if we made scheduled, consistent buys every month. That is, we are committing to purchasing at least one ounce of silver every month. The purchases can be larger, of course, but we are dedicated to at least making a single purchase of some size. We are hoping that this consistency will elevate our determination as we are continually "in the game" so to speak, but more importantly, we hope that this will take away some of the emotion and unknown elements that come with trying to anticipate the market and purchasing on dips.

That isn't to say that there aren't some difficulties with our new strategy. As two students with little money, a consist monthly purchase is going to mean that we ensure that we have the necessary funds available. Our goal is to try to put 10% of our wealth into silver, and has never been to get into debt through building a large silver stack. Our new goal will also require us to do more due diligence on where to purchase from. Because our buys will usually be small, perhaps only an ounce or two, it doesn't make sense for us to purchase from online dealers where shipping costs will amount to a substantial portion of the overall purchase price. Therefore, we will have to rely upon the local coin store, exchanges through mutual acquaintances online (such as through Stackerville) or from websites with little to no shipping fees.

We are excited with our new silver goal and have embraced the idea of making small, consistent purchases in order to build up a substantial silver stack. At the end of the day, we hope that this will encourage and assist us with our overall goal to put 10% of our wealth into precious metals, even though we have scarce funds at the moment.

What are your silver stacking goals or methods right now and what do you think about our current goal?

Time to Revive the Blog

When my brother and I started this blog in May of last year, we had planned to keep it updated with our coin roll hunting finds, the expansion of our silver stack and also some discussion about Austrian economics. However, we found it much easier to document our finds through our YouTube channel. This led to us neglecting this blog and the great readers looking for information and the enjoyment of seeing our coin roll hunting finds (something that I personally love seeing from others as well!).

With this in mind, my brother and I are going to commit to reviving this blog. We will start by posting the copper penny and 99.9% nickel results that we have obtained through coin roll hunting in the past year and a half. I still have the majority of the information from each box, so it only makes sense that we share the results. We will also share our new silver stacking goals now that the Canadian penny has been terminated, leaving us without our beloved hobby of coin roll hunting pennies. Although this blog has centered around coin roll hunting rather than silver, primarily due to coin roll hunting being significantly unknown in relation to silver, we see it as a good opportunity to start discussing silver and precious metals in general on the blog.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to visit this blog over the past 18 months. We hope that you will enjoy the new content, and more importantly, we hope to engage in a great discussion with everyone about coin roll hunting, silver and economics. If you coin roll hunt, let us know how you have been doing with your results recently, or if you stack silver, what are your goals for the rest of the year?

Copper Penny Hoarding Results From Box #48

One of my favourite hobbies is coin roll hunting through rolls of pennies, nickels and dimes. For the past three years we have been going through $25 pennies boxes looking for Canadian pennies to add to our hoard. We were lucky to be able to go through another box yesterday in order to take advantage of the increased value of copper pennies.

Our 48th penny box was fairly up and down. There were eleven full rolls that had no pennies before 1997, meaning not a single copper penny. However, to make up for such a poor run of rolls, there were five rolls that were filled completely with copper pennies. In fact, two of the rolls were fortunately filled completely with pennies before 1980, which are Canada's best copper pennies to find. In the end, we ended up pretty close to our average and got a pretty decent result from this box. Here are the results from this box:

$25 Penny Box
-940 copper pennies (37.6%)

Total King George VI pennies: 6
Total American Wheat cents: 3

It is always a nice feeling to be able to store some of our wealth in copper pennies, while at the same time gather some older numismatic coins. All the best in your searches this week!

Silver and Gold Stacking Goal

As you can probably tell, we enjoy coin roll hunting through boxes of pennies, nickels and dimes to look for coins that are composed of metals that make their melt value higher than their face value, in addition to older coins that consist of numismatic value. We find that coin roll hunting makes sense for a number of reasons, particularly as a way to protect ourselves against inflation.

However, we are also purchasers of silver, and hoperfully one day, of gold as well. We purchase silver bullion in order to once again, similarly to coin roll hunting, protect our wealth in economic environments consisting of inflationary fiscal and monetary policies. In the video above, I explain why I choose to have 10% of my wealth in precious metals as my stacking goal and I why believe this makes sense from an asset vs. investment standpoint. However, I also state that purchasing silver from a supply vs demand standpoint is popular too and just as valid to those who go that route. In the end, we are all accumulating silver and gold.

I also provide a brief update on our YouTube channel going forward. If you would like to see all of our coin roll hunting results for the last 15 months, check out some of the videos on that channel.

What are your silver and gold stacking goals?