Drowning In Wheat Cents! Advise Please.

Most of us would like to have your problem!

You could always search through them, then roll them with one Indian Head penny sticking out on the end of each roll and sell them on ebay as "unsearched". You could make money for years to come. :) Just kidding... obviously don't do that. Bad joke.

I recently went through (am still going through) a large collection that contained about 1000 wheat pennies and did it much in the same manner you propose. Separating by decade first and then going back and searching for the key dates from each decade. The problem I had was that the wheat pennies were also mixed in with memorial cents, Indian heads, quarters, halves, nickels and dimes in large bags. It was a 60+ year collection that was mostly just tossed together spanning from 1798-2009 of US coinage tossed into the same bags. Was very exciting, and at times mentally draining. I was constantly afraid that I would miss something major and lose out on a big find.

I spent a few hours each night a few times a week sorting by denomination, then by style, and then would pick one and go through all the coins at the same time. It was a large undertaking but once I got to just the wheat pennies I had found a rhythm and it seemed to get easier.