Thread: Fair price for 5,000 "average circulation" wheat cents?

A part-time dealer at the local flea market wants $250 (5 cents each) for these. I suspect they are searched. What are your thoughts on this price? Should I attempt to haggle down closer to $150 (3 cents each) which is about melt value? I definitely would hoard these after searching them, rather than reselling them, I don't know how that should affect my decision.

What is the max you'd consider paying for these?


Thanks for the input.

1. $250 for a bag of 5000 is the going rate in my area. I think it is fair.
2. The part-time dealer probably paid 2-3 cents each for them so why would he sell them for that?

If I were going to buy them, I would offer .04 cents each but also offer to buy all that he had to make up for it. Then again, I don't really buy bulk wheat cents anymore...

Originally Posted by jhinton

1. $250 for a bag of 5000 is the going rate in my area. I think it is fair.
2. The part-time dealer probably paid 2-3 cents each for them so why would he sell them for that?

If I were going to buy them, I would offer .04 cents each but also offer to buy all that he had to make up for it. Then again, I don't really buy bulk wheat cents anymore...

$0.03 each is in no way an unreasonable starting offer and $0.05 is pretty much retail with no bulk discount. 3.5-4 cents each is more than reasonable considering he is a flea market seller and could easily offer by the roll. Seems obvious he wants to bulk them out. JMO.

OP,

"Searched" is an over-used and very generic term. If your hope is to find keys/semi-keys, the odds are probably not in your favor when buying bulk lots - it does not take long to scan through the coins and pull dates. However, if you are variety searching, especially for your own collecting interests, such lots can often yield many (albeit low value) RPMs and other minor varieties.

I found bags of 5000 for about $200 not including shipping. I have never gave more than 3 cents for wheats.

If he won't take $200, then move on, plenty more to be had.

Well since you can't melt them why think of melt value at all? BTW anyone figured out how much the energy costs to melt a wheat penny?
So now how much is the collector value of the coins if most are culls?

My dealer charges me the same, $250/5000. However, has bags usually have some BU 40/50's in the mix.

Like the others said, 5 isn't out of the question but they should be willing to do 4. Dealers around here pay 3 cents apiece.

About the whole "searched" thing, of course they have been searched, many multiple times. The best batches of these I ever got were from coin shops in the 80's where everything not the top 5-6 or high grade teens were thrown in. Used to be for average lincolns only the top 5-6 dates were really looked at. That is about the best "unsearched" you could ever hope for really.

Now, if someone claims a bag is unsearched, by gosh it should not be full of just 40's and 50's coins, I would call shenanigans if that happened.

I buy them for .04 cents at the shop I go to. I've just went through about 11,000 of them over the last few weeks and found some nice stuff. In total 35 1909's in VDB and none, a 24-D, 3x 10-s, lots of semi key teens s & d's, 33-d's, 26-s and lots of BU.

Yes...I'm tooting my own horn because you don't see a lot of good bags from dealers.

Shipping on bulk wheaties is a significant part of the pricing and valuation. If you find them at 3 cents, I can almost assure you that you pay the postage and the total price winds up near that 5 cent each mark.

I would pay no more than $0.04 each for searched Wheaties in qty of 5k.

Originally Posted by Marshall

Shipping on bulk wheaties is a significant part of the pricing and valuation. If you find them at 3 cents, I can almost assure you that you pay the postage and the total price winds up near that 5 cent each mark.

USPS large flat-rate box = $15 and will hold $50 worth in copper cents weighing 68 pounds.