So i recently bought a pound of wheat cents and got them in the mail today. out of all the cents, only about 15 were Pre-1939, with only 1 in the teens. sadly most of them were from te 40's and 50's. I'll take the low-year ones and the good ones to put in my Whiteman folder, but I'll probably end up releasing alot of them into circulation. might as well eh? oh well, kinda bummed, though it would be better. especially considering before that i bought a single roll of wheats (from a different seller) and got a very wide variety of dates.
I try to stay away from that stuff for that very reason. Don't put them in circulation, though. You never know when the price of copper will sail through the roof.
Think about it. If you look at mintage figures you will see tha the VAST majority of all wheat cents were struck in the 1940's and 50's. So if you buy a group of wheat cents, even if they are truly a random selection and haven't been picked over, the vast majority of those coins will also be from the 1940's and 50's. Some people think that because they get a whole lot of late date wheats in a bulk lot that it must not have been searched. Actually they only way you will get a lot of EARLY dates in a bulk lot is if they have been searched.
Where to buy wheats? I like going through wheats looking for varieties, filling holes in collections, etc. Where is the best place to buy them? I'm guessing most of the by-the-pound sales on eBay are searched to the nth degree. I've bought some there and they are really hit or miss. If Ebay is the place, who's a reliable seller of wheats? Thanks! Alicia
Buying a large bulk amount from ebay is sort of like throwing a net into water for fishing. You have no idea of what will come up and may not even be fish. The thing I've seen for many years is many people do buy bulk Cents and go through them and then put them back up for sale on ebay again. I've none many people that do just that. Eventually every coin has been looked at many, many times. I've always liked stupid statements like "all cents are wheat back Lincolns and are unsearched". Think. How would anyone know they are all wheat backs unless they were searched? However, with a book like "Looking Through Lincolns" there are so many error and variety Cents listed that they may have been missed by many previously.
Like some of you I have a thing for cents, I buy mine through ads on Craig's List. Seems most collectors just want silver and gold now and leave me alone hoarding cents. Here is a fact I saw on another site . Here's some useless facts for you. There were around 24,821,413,990 *Wheaties produced between 1909 and 1958 including proofs..Close to 77% of that total was minted*AFTER *1940. A total of 8.148% were produced in the years between 1909 and 1919.* How do these numbers compare with todays production. Normal production of pennies today is between 8 and 10 billion a year(Let's average that to 9 billion).If the mint operates 365 days a year, it produces 24.65 million pennies per day.* and if it strikes coins*24 hours a day during that 365 day working period that will further break down to a little over one*million per hour or 17,123 per minute.*In other words, the mint will make that equivelent ammount of Memorials in 2 and a*half* to three. years.Speaking of three years,Remember... in 3 years,*the*Memorial design will be discontinued *because*in 2009, the Mint is going to introduce a new design penny
I gotton unsearched wheats and mercs, I've had a lot better luck with the mercs. I got 12 rolls once, and after I looked through them, I had 2.5 rolls of just mercs from 10's and 20's, not bad. As for your pennies, I'll release them for you, just give me the word!
