hey guys i was thinking of starting to roll search. I was gonna do halves but none of my local banks have them in small quantities. They said they could order me a box but i dont have the money to buy a box as of yet. I was wondering when roll searching what other types of coins are good to search and do you just look for silver or are their certain dates or errors you look for? Thanks in advance
It takes money to make money. Halves are your best chance for profit. If you aren't doing boxes and boxes at a time you are going to lose money. I do six boxes and a time because that's the maximum amount I can carry. Banks aren't going to give you free wrappers for a large quantity. You have to order them, that costs money. You also have the cost of gas. Assuming you get a large quantity you will have to ship them to a bullion dealer to get the best price. Registered mail is the most cost effective way but it is not cheap. I won't even get into the security issue of walking in and out of banks with large amounts of coins. I'm not trying to discourage you but it sounds like you don't have the capital required to effectively make it work. You can roll search any denomination fill albums with nice examples with minimal wear. Maybe you should start with pennies, they're only $50 a box. But you'll still likely have to buy wrappers. As previously said there are lots of posts on here about roll searching. Chances are someone else has already researched and solved the issue (like where to get cheap wrappers).
I think roll searching is a great way to A) learn whether or not coin collecting is the hobby for you, and B) train you're eyes by looking at A LOT of coins in a short amount of time. My interest in coins has been slowly building over the last year or so A couple of months ago I decided a relatively cheap and easy way to figure out if I would enjoy pursuing this hobby would be to get some coin folders and go through some rolls to see if it's something I really enjoyed, or just a passing interest. So I went through about $60 worth of pennies-quarters and had a great time.
From a newer guy to a fairly new guy, I say do it. I'm certainly not in to make a profit, ala fifty's post, so the cost is fairly irrlevant to me. It really probably depends on what you want to do. For me it is the thrill of the hunt as well as the adrenaline rush when I find something decent to good. I am sure that will eventually wane and I will start moving towards trying to get some sort of a return on my investment. As it is, though, I just call the local banks and ask what they have "in stock" and then go pick it up. I've probably spent $5 total in gas, $10 for the '11 Red Book (thanks Amazon!), and got all my wrappers for free from the bank I use (thanks Regions!). For all of that I've already found roughly 30 40%s and 7 90%s. I'm making money without even trying. But like I said, that's not what this is about for me (yet). If you are doing this for fun and as a time filling hobby, go the roll searching route and go with whatever you have an interest in. If you're in it to make money, ignore me and listen to these guys that have been doing this way longer than me. Just my $.02.
