Partial Catch Of A Collection Dump!

So, first comes the story of how I was able to stumble upon this piece of a collection:

While I was waiting in line at a store to make a purchase, the clerk started breaking open a roll of hand-wrapped cents to make change for the person in front of me.

When the coins started coming out, the clerk exclaimed that the roll was entirely composed of Wheat Cents, and immediately started scooping them out of the cash register tray a few at a time. This naturally triggered a short conversation about the coins.

As I was leaving, it suddenly occurred to me that there was only one bank in town. Thus, barring the possibility of an earlier customer's purchase, it was a logical conclusion that there was only one place that those coins could have originated from.

My very next stop was, obviously, the bank! I requested a variety of hand-wrapped coin roll denominations, but focused most heavily on cent rolls (as I knew those were almost guaranteed to bear fruit).

----------------------------------------------------

The results of my pickup are as follows:

Cents: Of $10 in cent rolls (20 rolls total), all 20 rolls were effectively 100% Wheat Cents. The grand total for the cent rolls was 996 Wheat Cents and 4 Memorial Cents.

From left to right in the picture of the cent piles are: teens, twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties.

Judging by the huge variety of date/ mintmark combinations (including a healthy number of coins from the teens), the collection originates from a period when Wheat Cents were still circulating freely.

The most notable coin I found in the collection was a lightly circulated 1909-P V.D.B. cent. There was also a single heavily corroded, barely recognizable 1943 cent. Otherwise, steel cents were completely absent from this collection.

Nickels: I picked up several rolls of nickels, but there was absolutely nothing of note in them- not even the ubiquitous coins from the 1960s.

Dimes: I purchased a fair number of dime rolls, but nearly all of the coins contained within were clad Roosevelt dimes.

The "oddballs" in the dime rolls were a few non-silver Canadian dimes (including one coin with a small clip), as well as some British 10-pence coins (likely the remnants of someone's trip overseas).

One roll, however, contained quite a few surprises- 23 90% silver Roosevelt dimes and 4 Mercury dimes! Since the roll was not pure silver, I believe this may have somehow gotten "mixed in" with the rest of the dime rolls. These were the only 90% silver coins I found in the entire pickup.

Quarters: Like the nickels, none of the quarter rolls I purchased contained any silver at all. There were just the usual variety of States, Districts, Territories, and National Parks quarters, plus a quite random quarter-sized game token from Japan.

Half Dollars: Between all of the tellers, the bank had a total of 2 $10 half dollar rolls and $8.50 in loose half dollars.

All of the loose half dollars originated from one teller's tray, and 16 out of the 17 that were handed to me were 40% silver. To my surprise, the two hand-wrapped rolls contained nothing of note.

Dollars: There were 30 regular Eisenhower dollars, most of which are in About Uncirculated Condition. While they are not really worth anything over face value, these are uncommon enough in my area that finding them is, to me, somewhat of a "treat."

Judging by the fact that at least one business in town "beat" me to the bank, I assume this is just a piece of what was originally deposited. However, it still made for quite the nice surprise once I started going through it!

















The next day, I returned to the bank to see if there was anything I missed.

Just to be on the safe side, I decided to concentrate entirely on cents this time around. I was somewhat hopeful I would find an additional chunk of the collection, but many of the rolls were just the regular mix of copper and zinc cents.

Half a dozen Wheat Cents were scattered across these rolls (one roll actually had 3), which brought my 2-day total to 1002 Wheat Cents.

I did find a number of cent rolls with wrappers identical to those which contained the "hoard," but I was saddened to see an "LM" label prominently written on all of them. As was expected, there was nothing notable in these rolls, save for a single About Uncirculated 1950s Wheat cent.

On a slightly positive note, the rolls depicted below were a rather high 75-80% copper and 20% zinc. None of the coins within them postdated 1990, so these appeared to have been set aside some time ago.