I got a few "unsearched" penny rolls from ebay recently and did get several keys and semi keys; enough to make the venture worthwhile. Such as all the early S-mints from 1909 through 1919, two 33-Ds, one 1908-S IHC, etc. What really amazes me is the great number of uncles and grandfathers who had estates consisting of, apparently, nothing but rolls of pennies. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of unsearched penny rolls laying around in drawers, chests and closets. This apparently explains the discrepency between the number of cents minted over the years vs the number in circulation. And, over the years, no decendent has had the time to bother looking through these rolls to see what is there. Of course, they have the time to put them on ebay and manage the auction and ship the wins. It must be a colossal coincidence that all of these rolls contain 47 or 48 common dates and 2 or 3 semi rare, Bu or early IHC cents. Ah, the foresight of those now deceased to arrange the rolls' contents this way. I guess the draw of these rolls is that somewhere, someone's ancestor put 48 good key dates in a roll with a common date showing at each end. Oh well, it's a lot of fun looking.
I have searched through a few "Unsearched" roles from eBay and my bag of 40's and 50's is considerably larger than the rest of the decades. While I have found a few semi-key dates in circulated condition, nothing in BU. Congrats on your find, hope your luck spreads to me next time I give in and buy some more rolls.
AHH you're very lucky! My best roll was one with 15-16 Indian Heads in VG-F. I've gone through about 10-11 rolls and 1/4lb. and 1/2lb. bags of wheats hoping for a key date. No luck so far, but I've rerolled them all for my own 'hoard' I've started. I've got just over 1,000 wheats now
Finding unsearched rolls on E-bay is a find in itself. Finding a roll with one or two key and semi keys is just short of a miracle but finding that many keys and semi keys in a couple of rolls the coin gods were smiling on you that day! Incredible find!
Stranger yet, 99.9% of them are in identical machine-crimpped wrappers. I've found that when buying rolls, just buy the coins at the ends; everything unseen in the middle is a bonus. In other words, if you don't want the ones that show, don't buy it. Except that there is one seller who sells his rolls for $2.50 each. Occasionally they get bid up a bit more but not always. For common dates and fillers not findable in circulation and not worth a dealer's time to carry, his are the way to go.
