Hey guys, I bought two boxes of pennies from Wells Fargo the other day. I got in my car, and realized they were both sealed boxes of all brand new rolls of the 2010 shield penny. I was pretty mad because this seems to happen to me a lot, and I'm not good about checking before I take the box. I'm trying to find oldies and rare pennies, so boxes of sealed uncirculated, shiny 2010 pennies do me no good. My bank alllllways has new boxes (it's happened to me with boxes of 2009 and 2010 dimes, 2010 nickels, AND pennies now!), so now I have to specify to the teller about whatever particular coin type I'm buying, 'can you please make sure they look old and nasty?!' So anyway, drove to another bank to be polite - the woman who carried them out of the vault clearly had a bad back, so I wasn't about to go back in and say, 'Um, these are new. Please swap em' out!' Drove to another bank, went in, asked for two boxes to swap out the brand new ones I had, they asked me if 100 rolls from an elderly couple that had just dropped them off would be okay (I think they asked since I was swapping out a sealed bank box, and they didn't have any sealed bank boxes on hand, just customer rolled and brought in). I got a half-grin, and said 'perfect!' So I get them home, open a roll, and the entire roll are uncirculated, lustrous, shiny pennies from the early 1970's. So yeah, I know not much value - but I was excited because I like collecting copper cents, and I loooove when pennies are shiny, bright orange or deep red, and uncirculated, which is what these were. Best of all - none of them have been cleaned or polished or anything. All original luster. So I proceed through the rest of the day opening the remaining rolls, and every single penny was a copper cent! I found 15-20 wheats (no great dates, but some I didn't have), hundreds of gorgeous, uncirculated, lustrous pennies from 1959, the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980 and 1981. I was so excited because I knew my $50 investment had a metal value of over $130! Not to bad, eh? Now, all of the pennies weren't uncirculated with perfect luster, but hundreds of them were. I've bagged up the beauts, and kept the others in a box. So excited - I'm sure two boxes of pure copper will never happen again, unless I come in behind an elderly couple! Here are some pictures: (I've tossed in (in the big box) a few pennies since then, so you might see some later 1980's if you can make out dates - those weren't from the rolls)
I'd be pretty happy with a haul like that....there are some really nice doubled dies and repunched mint marks that are from the 60's and 70's that you should be looking for......and those look nice enough to start a decent set. Providing they don't have too many impact marks, of course.
Here are some closeups of the ones I've put in individual bags so far: I took a photo of another set I got in this batch, but they didn't come out well enough. I found 10 gorgeous 1974-S coins. A couple of them look like they literally came from a proof set, only they don't have the deep cameo finish. I always get excited when I find an S mint mark of any kind, haha. The photos above are mainly some of the coins from 1959, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978 and 1979. All different mint marks. I really don't know what to look for with these years - you mentioned some things. Anything in particular (an exact year / specific error)? Thanks Mitch
I'm going to go back to the bank and see if she still has the rest of them. She said there were hundreds of rolls. I knew when I saw the rolls that I might be getting some nice older coins. They were the older bank rolls, pretty faded and worn out. The color was faded from all of them. Anyway, I'll check back to see what I should be searching for and to let everyone know if I have luck getting more of this batch.
That's pretty incredible. You need to look for 1960 d ddo, rpms in the 60s, 1969 s ddo, 1970 s small date, 1972 ddo, 1972 d ddo, 1983 ddr, 1984 ddo (ear), and 1988 ddo (ear). Also, look for any coin that looks virtually perfect with little to no blemishes or scratches. If you do find one, send it off to get graded. if it is a ms67 or higher, it could be quite valuable. Good luck!
