May 12th finds: 
Main Branch Madness!

I got a call from the Main Branch today and the teller said that he had “some old $20s and some $1000s”.
I went down there after work as fast as I could, and I was glad to receive:

A few paper journey $5s (with an insert note!)
A bunch of Journey $20s and a couple of birds $20s too.
And after taking a look at the five birds $1000s in the pile, I took the best one as the others were in much worse condition.
It has been quite awhile since I had my hands on any $1000 bills; they are certainly disappearing from circulation.
I also decided to take a couple of old Macdonald $10s so that I could extend their lives just a little longer.

Enjoy!
Dean

Regarding the May 7th find of finding a 1910 Sterling Silver dime with a King Edward VII effigy, this is truly remarkable in 2025. When I am Toronto Star paperboy between 1969 and 1974, King Edward VII coins could be found routinely as well as King George V coins of 1911 - 1936. What was rare in that day was to find a Queen Victoria coin and I could never find one in the wild during this time.  I went to many banks during 1971 and 1973 to collect coins and sort out the silver and then I would sell these silver coins starting in 1971 for 25% over face value and by the end of 1973, I would get 245% over face for silver coins.  I sold a lot of coins to the Coins Dealers in Downtown Toronto but I could never find a Queen Victoria coin.

As we age, it is always interesting what we consider to be a great "wild" fine and Dean, you have proved to us that you still need to check your pockets as you never know what you could find.

Dean, you are amazing and keep up the good work on finding banknotes and coins.

By the way, as a Paperboy, I did find a number of 1909 Lincoln cents but never with the rare mint mark.  I will let you figure this one out.  Plenty of US pennies dated from 1910 to 1935 were found as a Paperboy.

Best regards, Whitenite

-Thanks for the correction @rxcory - yes the ERG $20 (was just replying off-the-top of my head, trying to recall some of the short prefixes reported).

I did not mention the 2011 HAE-HAL Fives only b/c we expected those to be short & the ones I mentioned came up short more in the middle of their run (with the exception of the 2011 AUT $20).  There's probably a few more short prefixes I failed to mention here.

I remember the HAK prefix and how less abundant it was for many weeks, but during the final two weeks prior to the release of the Polymer $5s, there was a surge of HAK prefixes starting to circulate, and someone mentioned, along the lines of "it was a pretty scarce prefix until now" ("now" referring to the final two weeks of the Journey series).  It sounds like the reason for the surge of HAK prefixes was likely due to the Bank of Canada aggressively clearing out their inventory of Journey $5s as much as they can before the Polymer $5s were officially launched.

I think eventually as more appear on the market the charlton guides will eventually reflect on their true value.

I have 100% lost faith in the Charlton as a benchmark for note prices, mainly because of the fact that they don't even update new prefixes in issue annually and the fact that the persons on the committee that determine changes to the prices of notes in the guide are mostly dealers that have a financial interest in keeping the note prices low, so they can buy everyone's notes for chump change and claim "but that's the Charlton price!!!" Just a scam all round in my opinion.

May 11th coin hunting results:

I was pleasantly surprised to find:

$3.35 in US coins
A few nickel bullion nickels
Two 10c pieces and one 25c piece from Barbados
A coin from the United Arab Emirates
A 1 baht coin from Thailand
A few 1968 nickel alloy dimes
A couple of 1969s
A couple of 2021 coloured dimes
And best of all a 1939 and a 1967 silver!

Enjoy!
Dean

May 11th weekend coin hunting finds.

Yesterday, I picked up $250 worth of dimes, $100 in quarters and $14 in nickels.  The teller also offered me 12 rolls of pennies and some loose ones as well.  He even gave me the loose pennies for free!  😀

Read the results in the next post…

Dean

the oldest circulation coin I have ever found in the wild…a 1910 sterling silver dime nearly worn flat.

Great find ! 

Bump

1910 sterling silver dime nearly worn flat.

Awesome find!

May 7th coin hunt:
My oldest find…ever.

Today I went back to the same bank where I got the rolled coins that yielded 2 silver dimes.  I bought all of their remaining customer wrapped dime rolls totalling $95 and the teller added in one machine wrapped roll to round the total up to $100.

As expected, the machine wrapped roll contained brand new 2024 dimes and there were a few rolls that were short.

I accept short rolls as part of coin roll hunting but the finds from these rolls more than made up for the shortage!

Highlights include:
Two 5 pence coins from the UK
7 1968 nickel alloy dimes
8 US dimes
One really nice 1978 dime
And best of all…two silvers: a 1968 50% dime and the oldest circulation coin I have ever found in the wild…a 1910 sterling silver dime nearly worn flat.

People often ask me why I do this…The rewards speak for themselves!

Enjoy,
Dean

Lucky you!