Ebay Roll Scam - How Is This Guy Faking The Wrapper?

It is actually remarkably difficult to 100% prove or disprove many things in our world. For example, you can't prove to me that there isn't a tea kettle orbiting the sun. Who is to say those wacky Brits didn't have a secret space program?

Really, for most things, you just need to show that they are extraordinarily likely or unlikely. Sometimes the standard is even lower. For example, in U.S. civil courts, you just need to show there is a 51% or better chance that something happened in order to get a judgment.

For the fun or it, I tapped a math resource to estimate the likelihood of the SF Fed creating such a roll in 1950.

From 1909 through 1949, the SF mint produce a bit over 2 billion cents. So we'll assume that in 1950, there was a pool of 2 billion cents out there. Certainly this number isn't entirely accurate since: (i) there were probably a fair number of IHC's floating around in 1950; and (ii) coins are taken out of circulation over time. However, we need to start somewhere, so lets just use 2 billion.

Of this 2 billion, lets assume 1 million are VDB cents. Yes, I know, SF didn't make that many. The remainder are Philly cents that migrated. I'm thinking this is a generous number given coin really doesn't travel all that far from where it starts.

So, given these numbers, what is the probability that a 50 coin roll contains two VDB cents? About 1 in 334,464.

Wow, that's really not that bad is it? Well, this is where things start to get a bit trickier. See, there are 50 positions in that roll. That is, the coin could be first, twenty seventh, fiftieth, etc. Plus, there are two orientations for each coin - heads and tails.

What we are looking for here is a very specific roll. A roll that not only has two VDB cents, but a roll that has one of those cents on each ends, both oriented so that the tails are facing out.

The odds of that happening are actually a bit over 1 in 1.6 Billion!

But wait, he has over 150 of these rolls. He must have found a cache of rolls in a box, which means they were all spit out one after another. So what are the odds of this?

I can't really tell you all that well. My spreadsheet program can't handle the math. We're probably talking one in a googolplex, which is a 1 with 10100 zeros after it.

So just for fun, lets assume that some zealous coin collector managed to collect every single of 28,479,000 VDB cents minted, and then put them back into circulation. We now have 2 billion cents, of which 28,479,000 have a VDB on them.

What are the odds of finding one of these super special rolls? About one in four million.

Not too bad right? So then what are the odds of finding a cache of 150? Not really that much different. Still probably in the googolplex territory.

Keep in mind there are all estimates, but pretty sound ones.

Oh, definitely. There is no reason to contact him.




Lets take it a step even further. The original calculation was 1 in 1.6 billion. That means if you make 1.6 billion rolls, one should be the magic roll.

But wait, there are only 20 billion coins in circulation. That means if you went house to house, bank to bank, and collected all 20 billion, you could only then make 400 million rolls. You'd thus be 1.2 billion rolls short.

So, the Fed would then have to send all the coins out, wait for them to come back loose, and roll them again. And then again. And then again. And then again...

Basically the Fed would have to roll all the coins in circulation four times to create one of these magic rolls.

My guess is production numbers have been lost to the ages, but I wonder if the SF Fed created 1.6 billion rolls of cents during its entire existence.

How would one fake a roll like that? The paper looks aged and worn like it should be.

MAYBE the wrappers really are old, and he's applied a stamp to them and filled them with junk? I just don't see how those wrappers could be modern.

Even if the rest of the roll was junk, wouldn't the end coin be worth something in that condition? Even if it's not a 1909-S, that's a really nice coin.


-oddcoins

Hello All,

I am new to rolls and have done about six boxes of halves so far. On E-Bay, there are a lot of sellers selling bank sealed rolls and making decent money on it.

On my last boxes, I thought about doing it as well but I went through a good number of rolls at random and did not find hardly anything like I had in my first four boxes. This being known, I could not sell them as "possible silver" in good conscience when I was not finding any myself.

If I had found some nice coins, I would not have hesitated to sell a few on E-Bay.

As for the dealer in question here, I would not buy from him. I agree that the odds of actually having what he says he has just do not add up.

"On my last boxes, I thought about doing it as well but I went through a good number of rolls at random and did not find hardly anything like I had in my first four boxes. This being known, I could not sell them as "possible silver" in good conscience when I was not finding any myself."

I agree about selling rolls you know are bogus. Personally I wouldnt have a problem with someone selling bank wrapped rolls as possible silver when it could be. Its not different then when you look for it yourself through them, sometimes youll find some and most of the time you wont. I think the issue here isn't that hes selling rolls with possible big money pennies, its that he knows exactly what is in those rolls. Considering some of those pennies can go for thousands and one type for 40k or so in the right condition I doubt anyone would willingly sell them without checking first. heck with the shape they look to be in the "untouched" rolls if it was real there would be a chance of finding one in a grade that isn't known to exist anymore and really bring in the big bucks.

At best he got some rolls pulled out any big money finds and made these, but more likely he just came across a hand full of coins hes using as end pieces to sell the fake rolls

I just got taken by one of these "unsearched bank rolls" scams on ebay. After I received the coins and realized they were bogus I dug a little deeper, and saw feedback from when the seller purchased the bulk lot of indian heads that he sticks on the ends. Wish I would of done a bit more research first. Oh well, live and learn a lesson or two.

As I have said before, anyone that bids more than the value of the enders is a fool.

This is obviously BS, however I am curious about the rolls too. The Fed as a rule may not have started rolling coins until later, but that doesn't mean it wasnt done by individual banks. Someone mentioned that they thought pennies were rolled in .25 vs .50. Does anyone have further info? Cant find anything useful doing a search.

I did, ebay agreed, and the seller's auctions are down.