Where's the best place to purchase OBW rolls from? I bought a few rolls advertised as OBW on ebay but have my doubts for various reasons as to weather the coins where searched or not?
In this day-and-age any roll of coins (not new from the bank or mint) existing have been searched. If you have the money needed you can do this: check with any entity that gathers coins from the public (city parking meter collectors, gum ball machine operators, newspaper vendor route deliverers, phone companies who have pay phones, public bus companies.etc. They have to pay someone to sort, and roll the coins (their own employee/s or an outside firm). You come along and offer to purchase the loose coins at face value. You, then check each coin, roll them and know no one searched them before hand. You'll have to invest in equipment like coin scannrers, coin sorting machines and automatic coin roll machines. Clinker
I would assume they are searched, unless there's strong evidence to the contrary. Also, depends on what exactly you're looking for -- what type coin, and what year? If it's a year that has valuable errors, I can't even imagine someone selling it unsearched, UNLESS they had a whole lot from the same source, and are somehow confident that the lot is clean (for example, when the mint was still rolling cents themselves, if you got a box of rolls from the mint, there's a reasonable assumption that error coins will group together. Same with well struck coins. (btw, I'm a novice and I'm also learning the ropes right now, so I could be completely wrong about what I'm saying, caveat emptor). I would look at the seller's other auctions, live and completed, and if they are selling individual coins... makes me nervous about buying "unsearched" rolls from them -- although, it's not impossible. I'd look at what they seem to specialize in because not every collector can specialize in everything. Maybe they have a source of OBW and primarily use it for their particular coin/year, but also pick up other denominations to make a very easy quick profit by selling the rolls unsearched. Now, all of that having been said.... I just recently purchased some OBWs from ebay, 2 different sellers, and in both cases, I'm completely confident that they were OBW. Edited to add: Oh, and the most obvious thing to mention: just ask the seller. I've done this several times, and the answer was clear enough to let me know that they may not have been unsearched (like, look for key phrases such as "not searched by ME" and things like that.)
Not exactly true. I've picked up customer-rolled coins from the bank recently, and in found a silver quarter in one, and several wheat cents in others. Not as easy as it was 20 years ago, but still somewhat possible. And, I cannot get mint state cents from my banks -- they simply don't get them anymore because they have so many circulated cents coming into their hands, apparently.
As usual, you are correct, Doug. The only problem, I have, is that I have never been to a bank that had a counting/rolling machine. There may be some around, but I haven't seen them. I think, as we both know, "OBW" is a marketing term, which is mostly aimed at the uninformed would-be coin investor.
OBW is a misnomer - the bank doesn't roll the new coins, their supplier does. But banks do count and roll coins that they receive from their customers - they also place coins in bags for return to the FRB. I agree about OBW being a marketing term, the term never even existed until a few years ago.
end-rollers are cheap (can cost less tha $20) so be very cautious if you (or someone you explicitly trust) wasn't the one to get the roll from a bank. It is easy and cheap to recrimp the end of a roll and have it look machine-done.
Will these rolls be really really tight? I suppose if only one end is opened and the coins pushed out, the opened end could be recrimped and the roll as tight as original. Yes?
Yes. One thing you can count on - if there is a way for a seller to take advantage of a buyer - one of them will do it.
But...Isn't it more fun, if I believe what I want to believe? Doesn't a bunch of contadictory details sort of put a damper on things?
