i see these auctions on ebay for "unsearched rolls" of wheat pennies. they sell for $12 dollars all the way up to $50. has anyone bought any of these? i know there is a topic abot this but it seems to be more about bank rolls. thanks
Depends on what you are looking for, but you can pick up wheat rolls for a lot less than 12 bucks, even on Ebay, especially if you buy them in bulk rather than individual rolls. Basically, if the roll just happens to have some very alluring coin on the end(such as the reverse of a vdb, an IH cent, silver dime, etc) then you know it's a rip-off. You probably are not going to find an '09-s vdb, but if you are a variety collector, you can actually find a lot. That's what I collect, and I buy everything from Ebay, and that's where I've found all of my varieties.
I went to a local coin shop and bought "unsearched" wheat cents there. The guy at the shop said they didn't have enough staff to sort all of the wheats that came in. He did say they had most likely been searched by someone before they ended up in his shop. He just dumped the coins from a bucket into the coin counter and set it for the number of coins I wanted to buy. They cost me 4 cents per coin ($2.00/roll). I filled a lot of holes in a Whitman folder with them. I even found several Indian cents. GatewayCoinGuy
they are a rip off, especially at that price. i bought 33 rolls for 3-4 dollars a roll. didnt find anything special but i did fill alot of spots in my penny collection. There were some decent shape old pennies too. So far i am just collecting one from ever year. then ill do mints. got about a rolls worth of teen's to 20's. then filled multipe rolls of everything newer... thats what you can expect from ebay though... alot of 40s' to 50's then less of the earlier years... the search to me is the fun part. you really dont know what to expect. even though they say they are unsearched, they probably are, but they might have missed something...
That's a lot better option than buying them at 50x face on ebay. And you get to see what you're getting before spending the cash.
I can go out right now on Ebay and buy 50 rolls for $100. You just have to be wise in what you are looking at, and don't get caught up in the baiting practices of those who put shiny coins on the ends of their rolls.
I have bought a few of these rolls. In Lincoln cents, I have found 10-S, 11-S, 12-S, 13-S, 14-S and 15-S. Also a 09-S IHC. Not gigantic finds, but well worth the cost of the rolls. As has been stated here before, buy only the coins on the open ends of the rolls. If you don't need/want those, leave the roll alone.
