I read that storing copper cents in paper rolls is a bad idea because it will turn them green. Is there any truth to this?
No, not usually unless there is moisture inside of the rolls. The worst that usually happens with OBW rolls is that the paper makes the edges tone and darken. The toning can take anywhere from a few years to decades to become noticeable but I think a lot of it has to do with climate and the varying sulfur levels in the paper.
Are you thinking of using paper rolls on your thousands of wheat cents, and then storing that in the roll box you posted a want ad for? if so, i dont see any issue
I was planning on storing them in the plastic rolls, but they are 30 cent each, the paper ones are only 5 cents each. Has anyone used a tool called the "twist and crimp" and if so, does it work well?
Three things. 1 - Twist and Crimp is a joke and a waste of money. You can do exactly what it does by finger rolling the rolls. All it does is crush the paper down to a 'clean line.' 2 - If you get a box of cents at the bank, you get 50 free rolls basically. My bank doesn't take rolled coins, so I get tons of free rolls when I buy. 3 - Paper rolls can damage BU coins more so than circulated wheat cents. The paper turns the BU coins a black color on the rims and wherever the paper touches the coins. Usually due to humidity from what I've read, and this happens to all coins I've noticed not just cents. But with brown wheat cents, as long as you rinse them off or dip them to remove any dirt, they'll store in paper rolls just fine.
I have coin rolls that are 50 to 70 years old and there is no black on the edges unless you have a moisture problem. I have silver and nickel and copper in these wrappers and they are just fine. I have over 1200 rolls of BU Lincoln cents in paper wrappers and half are in original bank wrappers. I also have $100 in silver dimes and the ones I have opened look MS-65 and better no black on edges. I also use the crimpers and they work great and save time and I would never dip any of my coins not ever
I have a video on youtube where I open a 1944 roll of cents and they are just wonderful search richcali21 there is another video where I talk about bank wrapped rolls and how I store my coins with saflips and Intercept Shield Boxes
No offense, but I've a hard time believing that someone who claims to be hoarding wheat cents as a long-term "investment" would have any real use for a twist-n-crimp; they do nothing more than to round-off roll ends and give them a more-uniform appearance, but still not even close to that of a machine-wrapped roll. This is not to say that certain collectors may not have an honest use for such a tool, but from what I’ve seen, most who consider buying these things have less than noble intentions. Since crystal light containers are your storage method of choice, you should have no use for them, unless maybe the toning idea has not panned out and "unsearched rolls" are next?
I have used the twist-n-crimp tool and they do not crimp rolls efficiently. On top of this they scrape into copper cents very easily. I remember no matter how soft and gently I tried to use the crimping tool (like what can be seen in Detecto's picture), a scraping mark of varying size would always be left on the cents. I recommend Detecto use hard plastic tube rolls for Mint BU coins and paper rolls or Crystal Light containers for circulated cents.
