To all the roll searchers here…How do you do it? Check the rolls that is. When you break open a roll do you take each individual coin and thoroughly check it for anything and everything possible or do you give it a quick check then put it in a pile for a closer look later? Do you use a low power loop or high power or does everything go under a microscope? When you’re done with a coin does it go right back into a roll or if you do pile them is it by decade, year, year and mint? I’m just curious as to your method. I have just finished checking 120 rolls of nickels. I checked each coin under a low power loop, put aside what interested me then separated the rest by decade (2000’s, 1990’s, 1980’s etc). Now I’m looking at a ton of coins that need to be re-rolled (which I do by hand ). My first thought is to push them under the couch and forget about them but that $60.00 is all I allow myself for buying rolls. I really do enjoy searching rolls and could do it all day if it weren’t for that nasty thing called a job getting in the way! I look forward to my next 120 rolls…but…There has to be a better way!!
First and foremost, find a bank that has a change counter that you can use for free. Open a savings account if you have to(make sure you put the normal minimum in that savings account, not the promotional minimum, to avoid fees). Make sure that bank is not the one you buy rolls from. I personally, only look for major varieties, like those listed in the redbook or greysheet. I look at each and everycoin with no magnification and set aside those that catch may attention for a closer look. Eventually you will have all the major varieties you are interested in memorized. Everybody finds a different comfort level for the extent of their search.
coin returns Just a note about coin counting machines. I found that a reputable bank where I took my loose coins has an inaccurate counting machine. I hand counted 200 half dollars and checked my count twice. The machine ate 2 coins and gave me a printout for $99.00. The next time I had the teller verify the count and she ran them through the machine. Yup this time the machine also miscounted and cheated me. Good thing the teller was there. The third time the teller started the machine before she was done counting my coins. She herself miscounted by 2 coins and the machine supposedly was "right on". It wasn't right on, it cheated me a dollar but the teller did not count them correctly. They do not care and this machine continues to cheat customers. I closed my account and never went back to that bank.
wow - Gatzdon your lucky to find one with a coin counter - i have to roll mine by hand ive heard this from others is dont get rolls and take them back to the same bank- that will get old very quick with bank tellers i myself - i use a 10X loop it does the trick plus you have to have the right lighting. i like a flourescent lighting myself i like to look thru pennies mostly and look for errors & varieties from the Cherrypickers guide book - there are nickels in the books also but not as many for the later years. i keep the ones im interested in tubes or whatever needs to be done with them. anything really good i put in a safe flip. almost all of them go back into a big bucket and i dont look at them again except for counting and rolling (again) !!! ugh. its a big viscous cycle :hammer: but its the fun in the search Snowman
I've checked with the banks around me and they all insist on getting coins already rolled. I think I might start looking each coin over real good and if it doesn't interest me I'll have a new roll ready to be filled. This way I'm not looking at a mound of coins. Thanks for the responses!
As you get away from the Urban areas, coin counters are hard to find. When I visited my parents in Florida, it was the same thing, no counters. I used the yellow pages and after calling every bank listed, found one that has a counter, but limits to $100 per day. It was better than nothing, and turned out they went past that bank frequently, so the $100 limit wasn't a big deal. With coin counters that cheat, here are two tips. 1. Counters like to count dimes as pennies. Keep your dimes separate and you will know that anything other than a zero for the cents column means you got dimes counted as pannies. The better tellers will actually look and pull them out of the penny bag for you (replacing them with a penny so their count is not off). 2. Some counters have secret reject cups inside the machine. Again, you need a good teller (and no customers in line) to get them to check the reject cup for you. Often there will be lots of foreign coins in their and if you are lucky, you can get the teller to give them to you. If you can't get good tellers to work with, don't bother with that bank anymore. Sure, today it's only a $1, but next time it could be $10 or more. Recently, I had a change counter short me over $40 on about $1000 in dimes. Luckily, this was my best bank for bringing in coins to. They popped the top off the counter and there were dimes EVERYWHERE inside that machine. Lucky me, the teller supervisor let me spend about a half hour getting as many as I could out of there. I couldn't get everything out, but she let me keep everything that I did get out to try to make up for the $40. When I went through it all, there were only a couple foreign coins and about $43 in coin. Pretty much worked out. Had this been one of the many other banks I visit, I would have been out $40.
My budget for rolls is $200. I sort by decade and then by year. After sorting by year, I do a close up look through a lighted magnifying glass. I pull the keepers and keep the others in tubes by their year. Then once I have enough of 1 year to make a rolls, I roll it and sell it on ebay for double sometimes 3, 4, 5 times face. If you get a couple ebay fools with more money and sense in a bidding war, the profit potential is endless. Solid date rolls sell pretty good and double the money is fine with me. My biggest sucker paid $14.00 for a roll of 1980 nickels and a roll of 1944 cents. To me, they were worth $2.50 but I'm not complaining. I had already cherry picked them and didn't advertise them as unsearched ..just circulate condition full date rolls. Go Figure.
