John Porrazza with JP Coins and Cards has been an avid coin collector for more than 35 years!
John says anybody with a good eye, can make some extra cash just by raiding their own piggy bank!
"You can find some silver coins you can find some copper pennies, pennies made out of copper you can also find some other coins too."
The first rule of thumb is to look for mistakes made at the mint. Coins that have been "double struck", could be worth more than their face value!
"Like these coins here these are only worth like four five dollars some of them can be worth hundreds, thousands of dollars."
You may not make thousands of dollars from your pocket change, but you can probably make at least a small profit by keeping a close eye on any state quarters you get.
"There's a lot of errors in state quarters."
For instance, the 2004 Wisconsin quarter, minted in Denver is flawed because it has an extra "corn husk".
"Which brought the value to roughly about one hundred, two, three hundred dollars depending on its condition."
Not a bad return and there are 50-thousand of these flawed quarters in circulation!!!
And some pennies can also pay off big!
"These pennies were minted in 1983, 1984 on the reverse everything was double on the reverse and people can still find them in change now-a-days."
This oddity, a "double ear" on Lincoln is worth two to three hundred dollars if the coin's in mint condition!
Another example is the 1994 penny with a double line in the Lincoln Memorial.
"Normal it's worth a penny, if you find this variety in about new, it's worth twenty five dollars."
And a mistake on pennies made at the Philadelphia mint in 1955 is worth thousands of dollars!
"Somewhere along the way the dye actually struck the coin twice."
In the collector's world, that's called "double dye" and its not just coins that can yield a big return. Check your bills as well!
A customer brought one dollar bill in to John that looked like a mirror image because of a printing error. And because of that error:
"Retail price is about seventy to one hundred because it's in mint condition, never been creased or folded."
Other mistakes that might yield you a profit?
"This one here (five dollar bill) did not receive the last two printings which would be the seal and face and everything."
It's worth $1,000! And here's a mistake really worth looking for.
"When they stamp these dollars they're made in three different printings. The last printing happened to be the serial numbers and the bill was upside down."
In mint condition its worth $300!
