Good Day, all: I'm considering a hunt thru a new MINT 100-piece bag for errors. The new Fort Moultrie bags are $39.95 with postage. I'd probably save 2 rolls for myself--as I save a lot of "specimen" coin. I know that my "specimen" rolls are non-interest bearing, but it's a fun way to put aside some extra $$$. What would I do with the excess coin? I'm trying to make financial sense of the extra coin. Thank you for your kind replies http://www.imdb.me/Brina
For many years, I ordered bags of Sac dollars, Kennedy halves and SQ's from the Mint with the intention of searching for high-grade specimens to submit for grading. This is the best way to make the search profitable. Finding one or two MS68 business strikes from one bag would more than pay for the cost of purchase and grading. You are more likely to find high-grade specimens as opposed to errors and varieties. So, if you limit yourself to just looking for errors and varieties, it will probably be a losing proposition. My suggestion would be to learn how to grade the type of coins you are searching and make the search for errors and varieties an incidental sideline. Chris
I don't know if this can happen these days since the Mint generally does NOT do the bagging. But it used to be that the smart thing was to empty the bag and look thoroughly around the inside seams for pieces. Often Mint planchet errors could be found.
Finding varieties is one thing in sealed mint bags, as for errors you won't ......well let me say the odds are slim to none. The new technology catches coins that are not struck correctly and sends them to another machine that waffles them. The company I work for uses the same sort of technology to pack meats. As a 80 lb log of lunch meat is loaded into a machine that cuts and vacuum packs it. The log is scanned using several device's if there a void in the meat that section is cut out and discarded . To understand better think about packing packages of 7 ounces of lunch meat. If the log has a void "air bubbles " and that area is sliced it doesn't weight what a normal whole slice would weight....thus the pkg. Would be under weight. And not up to standards . Same thing here the machine sorts throughout the minted coins and kicks out any that are sub par. The technology is so good that finding an error in a mint bag is dang near impossible . Now varieties yes as the machine doesn't scan for them just errors.
Look for those errors and varieties in any case. It's always a great feeling to lay some "Claim to Fame" for finding something not yet reported, such as a new Doubled Die. And ditto on Chris' post to look for high grade examples, always a profit to be made there.
To be perfectly honest, when the first Homestead, Ne. quarter Doubled Dies were first reported, I made a bee line to the Mint and ordered 10 100 coin bags of the P's. That's where I found 90% of my doubled dies. I now have about 40 different varieties and over 500 DD's from that purchase from those bags alone. This does not include the hundreds of die chips found altogether. This was also an early sell out on these bags. The rest I found in Loomis wrapped rolls. The majority of my die chips were also found in P bags. This has also been true of my Cumberland Gap P bags. Still only on my first bag and having searched only 20 coins, ten have had a large die chip on the reverse arm. The trick is to order early before the Mint catches the bad die.
HOW DEPRESSING! I was unaware of that--it spoils all of our fun :"( I know you literally can't find a bill error any more but I was unaware that coins were scanned
NICE community. TY, all. Other than coins, here's what keeps me busy lately. HA! A cheap plug for my new patent-pending guitar pick http://www.pickslinger.com
Yeah they are as at one time I was a roll and bag searcher. It not worth the time or money you lay out paying for mint bags that are quality assurance scanned before the seam is sown shut.
Well, hopefully I'll find some high-graders and perhaps some new die flaws. I sent for 2 "S" bags: one from Moultrie and one Rosevelt. Wish me luck
