Went to one of my usual pick up banks. Got a $25 box and nothing older than 1982. They took all the copper and shears and left the rest for me all the rolls had there intials on them too. Ugh
Happened to me all the time. One bank had nothing but previously searched pennies. About a year later, I met the guy and beat the crap out of him! (J/K). I actually did meet him. He's an old-timer that has roll searched for about 30 years. All he said was that he had pretty good luck doing it and the added income he makes selling his finds supplements his retirement income. He never gave a specifics as to what he's come across.
I suspect that most of it is copper hoarding. I am pulling VF or better '59s to early '82s, undamaged wheats, AU or better late '82s to '08s and UNC '09s to date. The rest get re-rolled with a small dot on the sleeve and get sent back to the bank. Also, I rotate banks that are in neighboring towns (never hit the same bank 2x in a row). I am hoping that the Mems might head a bit toward the collectability of the wheats some day. Right now I have around 100,000 rolled cents in ammo boxes.
I've actually received full boxes of halves that had been searched and returned, then resealed by the bank and sent out again. It's an awful feeling when you open the box and see that all the rolls have already been opened. You know you have to search 'em but you realize you're fixing to waste the next few hours of your life.
That is so disappointing. When I see black "X"'s on the rolls, my heart sinks. I do a few rolls at random and if I find nothing, I pack them up and return them.
When I return searched half rolls I write on the wrapper no silver in here. Just to save all those other collectors from wasting their time lol.
I search 'em anyway since I've found proofs and NIFC's including a 1987 in marked rolls before. I got a box yesterday from the bank that was sealed as usual, but one end of each roll looked hand crimped. I found a 1968D silver ender right off the bat, but that turned out to be the only one in the box. Either an amazing coincidence or the previous searcher missed one.
I recently went through 70 rolls of cents and found 1 common wheat! The wheat was found in a BWR, 60 or so of the rolls were CWRs and came from the same source. It wasn't a total bust, though. Alot of the rolls contained Unc/BU cents from the 1980s (especially '89s) up to the mid-1990s. I saved the best of them and will be putting them in collector tubes for safe keeping.
