Buying Wheat Rolls

I started collecting with wheat pennies and did all of it on ebay. It ended up being very costly in the long run. If I were to do it all over again I would not buy rolls or lots on ebay. I would just buy folders since looking at the blank holes will tell you basically what coins you are getting. The wheats that are worth more then $.25 will almost never be found in bulk lots, period! If you really want to 'search' I think searching for coins by decade is a better way to start out. Here is a rule that I try and stick by when buying bulk wheats. $.10-$.15 each for 1909-1919's, $.07-$.10 each for 1920-1939's, and $.05-$.07 for 1940-1958's. If you take your time looking for bulk wheats you will find auctions that will have them separated into decades like this. That being said, competition seems high for wheats on ebay as of late and at these prices it may be hard to win any auctions. Good Luck! Happy hunting!

I see those 'unsearched wheat rolls' all the time on ebay. More often than not, they have a tails-side Indian Head cent showing, a steel (1943) wheat showing, or a silver dime showing. I'd say that 75% of the 'unsearched wheat rolls' have these combination of coins showing. By that fact alone, they cannot be unsearched. They may be from an 'estate', heck, aren't my own coins from an 'estate'? And my house is old, so let's call them from an 'old estate'. Too many catch words. I personally think it's all a scam - no way a tails-side Indian cent made it to one side of the roll 'randomly' when it'll be the only Indian cent in the roll.

My advice is to search all the feedback you see from one of these roll sellers - many collectors list in the feedback exactly what they found in the rolls. And if you get a roll, please be sure to do this, as it helps us all out.

I like Gothic Florin's advice. I know someone who works at a Subway - he gets Wheat cents every week, and a War Nickel reliably once a month. There are still lots of these coins in circulation. You won't get rich, but you'll fill in the easy holes at least.

Stay away from unsearched shotgun rolls. Get your 50 posts and then post your want list here. Many here have tons of Wheats.

Rather than long, dragged out explanations, just do as this one says.
Great advise is usually short and to the point.

For what it's worth, I've been able to fill every hole in my Dansco (save '09s, '09s vdb, '14d and '31s) by searching rolls. It has taken a LONG time to do so, but IMO has been tons of fun. I still buy a roll from time to time, though. Note that not all of the ones that I found in rolls were great examples (so I'm always replacing them)...so look at it as a way to get started.

I had a listing on ebay recently of 117 different wheats, complete from 34 pds to 58 pd, and couldn't get a 50 dollar bite. There was a 1909 VDB that was a real dark AU in the bunch, and lots of first and second decade mint marks. I am not a fan of wheat pennies. You can't hardly give them away.

There were no spotted and corroded junkers in the lot either. I bought a huge collection and there were 3 partial sets of wheats. I sorted out all of the junk and kept the one set back. The rest went into the coinstar machine at the local Walmart. There were 16 rolls of wheat cents put into circulation here in SW Pa around Christmas time. By the time you charge for postage...they're not worth much at all.

Chance

Im starting roll searching too - I've done a few, but no real finds. I guess I'm going through 'searched' rolls =)

I must add - Lots of nice hard working folks on ebay also. Most actually