Coincurious7Coincurious7
Collector is an understatement.
Registered: 08/20/10
Posts: 115
I love my high end coins. But I also like sitting in front of the tv going through rolls of wheaties for an inexpensive treasure hunt. But I dont know where one can find truly unsearched rolls. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks
cpm9ballcpm9ball At this point, I feel I should interject something of little importance in the midst of this very educational Q&A.
TOTAL NEWBIE
Registered: 01/04/05
Posts: 13042
Loc: South Florida
I think the only way you might possibly find truly unsearched Wheaties would be to buy an original Mint bag, but you would still need to examine the stitching very carefully to make sure that it has not been opened and resewn closed.
Chris
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Joseph P. Machuga, February 28, 1915 - December 12, 1997 Frances L. Machuga, January 2, 1921 - September 29, 2006 Married: December 6, 1941 I love you, both.
Unsearched, by which you mean not searched for rare dates, are best found in estate sales. Grandpa's coin jar usually hasn't been picked over, and could have some good stuff.
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thebeavthebeav
Bid more or post more... tough one...
Registered: 02/19/04
Posts: 966
With gold and silver at good levels, I don't know too many dealers that have time to look at wheat cents. There are just too many other things to do. I would think you could obtain 'unsearched' stuff locally.
I highly doubt that truly unsearched stuff exists at all. Anyone who bothered saving wheats would certainly have known about the 14-D and S V.D.B. and plucked those out. Even so, I think some older accumulations can be found that weren't as heavily picked through. My advice is to look for dealers in small towns that don't bother with them. I lived in a small town for a few years while going to grad school and was able to find a lot of decent things in bags of wheats they sold.
I would also advise to avoid anyone claiming that their unsearched wheats have resulted in key dates found, the sellers that throw in bonus coins for every roll you buy, or anyone with a ridiculous story about where they came from. Oh and also that insufficiently_thoughtful_person on ebay who sells "unsearched" "sealed" rolls with a flying eagle on one end and a V.D.B. reverse on the other...there could be an S on the other side!!! Those kind of people *spoon* me off.
Find an honest dealer who will sell bags of circulated wheats to you with no representation of whether they are unsearched or not. You want to find the dealer who just doesn't care about them, doesn't have the time or willingness to look through them and just accumulates them as they come in from the public.
I used to buy bags from my dealer friend for $150 for a $50 bag. At that price I felt I couldn't go wrong. I eventually sold the bulk of those coins by separating the teens, twenties, thirties, and 40-50's and selling them to dealers that way in bulk. I actually made a (very modest) profit!
cpm9ballcpm9ball At this point, I feel I should interject something of little importance in the midst of this very educational Q&A.
TOTAL NEWBIE
Registered: 01/04/05
Posts: 13042
Loc: South Florida
I wonder if there are any 100 year old banks still in existence that haven't succumbed to corporate takeover. It would be cool to find one in some small town that had some of the machine-bagged coins still sitting in their vault.
Chris
_________________________
CHOO CHOO
"THE PERSON WHO CAN LAUGH AT HIMSELF ALWAYS LAUGHS LAST!
Joseph P. Machuga, February 28, 1915 - December 12, 1997 Frances L. Machuga, January 2, 1921 - September 29, 2006 Married: December 6, 1941 I love you, both.
RWBRWB
FACT if I stop posting, trillions and trillions of transistors would be out of work.
Registered: 01/03/05
Posts: 4501
I've been searching the same $50 bag for 35 years. Never have gotten past the top 25% of it-- mostly 1947s so far.
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Author of “Renaissance of American Coinage” (NLG Book-of-the-Year 3 years in a row) series and “Guide Book of Peace Dollars,” NLG 2011-Best Software: “Annual Assay Commission, United States Mint, 1800-1943,” and “Silver Dollars Struck under the Pittman Act.” Federal Court-approved numismatic expert. Contributor to the Red Book, Judd Patterns and many other fine numismatic books, discoverer of two gold patterns, and author of numerous coin research articles.
Registered: 09/12/03
Posts: 15159
Loc: St. Louis, MO
Originally Posted By: Kenneth F
I dont think an "unsearched" roll exists..
Funny !
They do. At my last show (this past weekend), I sold a wooden box of loose and rolled wheat cents to the dealer right next to me. I had owned the box some eight years or so, and never bothered to search them, other than as a cursory inspection to confirm that they were mostly wheat cents. As a matter of fact, they were obviously entirely wheats, but must have been set aside during the very earliest 1960s, since a very occasional Memorial cent would show up, but every one I saw was dated either 1959, 1960, or 1961 (and were more or less UNC).
Anyhow, since his show was very slow, he decided to start poking through the coins. During just the hour that he went through them, he found a 1913-S in VG, multiple 1909s (non-VDB), a 1922-D in VF but a little bent, and at least twenty coins in the teens with mintmarks.
There are three lessons to be learned here. #1, I sold them WAY too cheap (5c per coin, and we estimated 2500 coins). #2, I am awfully lazy, and should have searched the coins myself. And #3, unsearched hoards of cents are probably all over the place, since the coins were nothing special, just a pile of junk I bought off of someone at the coin club. But you WON'T (most likely) find truly unsearched stuff on eBay or in any common commercial venue.
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