Recognizing Someone Else's Dump

Some people do mark their used roles - I suggest you also get a monogram. Something unique to you, assymetrical, with a top.

Be helpful to your fellow role hunters, if you've searched, mark em up. Or, if you want to get in there for money, make it something small, as he sats, a dot or a line. Or an arrangement of dots.

I got a box of nickels and paid particular attention to how the coins were marked with sharpies. Coins were marked by filling in the eye, coloring the tip of the nose, filling in the dome on the back, a line on the forehead and chin. You could tell these were not random marks.

Maverick, I'm lucky enough to be able to hunt at the same bank my work uses for our change (they seem to get a lot of good stuff), so here is my suggestion, complete with script:

"I collect [coin denomination] and was wondering if you had any customer-wrapped rolls I could buy."


For some strange reason, these seem to produce a lot more goodies than machine-wrapped rolls--every single IHC, War Nickel, piece of silver that was not handed to me directly by a customer, and most of my early-early wheats (i.e., before 1935 or so) have come from customer-wrapped rolls. The only exceptions I can think of are two Buffalo nickels and, I think, one IHC (plus my silver certs, of course).

Some folks here will tell you not to say you're a collector; your mileage may vary. I'm a young woman dealing with mostly young female tellers, so when I see one I don't know I always smile and say "I'm one of those awful coin collectors, I'll try not to be a pain." That approach netted me three Prez dollars I didn't yet have (teller gave me her loose coin instead of just handing me a roll) and a look at another teller's drawer of halves at her prerogative, not mine--"do you collect half-dollars? Somebody came in an hour ago and gave me a whole bunch" (unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it was somebody else's dump).

A final note: if you're asked why you want customer-wrapped--which I was, once, by a teller who seemed very confused--a good answer is "There's a lot more variety in those rolls." This has the advantage of both being honest, and not telling the teller that they may be missing some valuable goodies.

I think it's hard to tell if the box is searched just by looking at the top of the rolls for potential searcher markings.

If you get boxes from the bank and the rolls are opened on one end, not machine wrapped. These are things that make me suspicious of having already been searched.

With cents, missing copper....I've gotten customer rolls that were devoid of copper.....as well as anything worth more than 1 cent.

I just got 50 customer wrapped cents and noticed pretty quickly they had been searched. Some rolls were machine rolls that were reused, now I realize this should have been a clue. The rolls tended to be a close range of dates rather than a variety. I was able to get about 10 rolls of copper (kinda low based on recent experience) but only a single wheat and no canadians. Kinda frustrating, it takes the fun out of it when you dump a roll and they are all a single year.

Hi everyone.

With half dollar boxes, I can sometimes tell before I open a single roll that it's a dump box. All the coins look beat up on the end of the rolls, and have the same dull look to them.

When you open them, like was said above, the all have the same dates, and not much variety to the box of 50 rolls.

On the other hand, a good mixed box, will almost always have a wide variety, for me usually with silver, proofs, BU's and NIFC's.

CWR's are also easy to spot dumps. If the wrappers are very new and barely creased, good chance they're dumps. I've picked up hundreds in dump rolls of halves, but I figure, just pick up whatever they have, and they'll be more likely to offer them to me when they have them. Tellers like to get rid of coins like halves and Ikes. They are not used in transactions much at all, and sit in their drawers until someone like us asks for them.

When I have a few hours free, or am stressed out and need a break, I'll take a drive out of my area, and look for clusters of banks to search. It's a lot of fun, and sometimes you discover a real good bank for receiving or dumping coins.
Cheers and happy hunting!