Novice Question About Bank Rolls

Generally people like to purchase rolls of coins to look for something that may be interesting or valuable like wheat cents, silver, errors, etc. It's not usually something you make significant amounts of money off of, but there's always the excitement that the next roll could contain something awesome, and usually, if you've looked through enough coins, you will. I know I certainly have!

All it takes is you go to the bank, ask for coins in the denomination you like (generally you should get a box, $25 for pennies, $250 for dimes, I forget the rest), look through em, roll em back up and take em back! Just be aware that sometimes you'll get solid rolls of brand new 2017/2018 coins, there is very little value in looking through these unless you're a hardcore variety collector and want to discover something new, but it's *extremely* tedious.

I spend $10 at a time on pennies or dimes. Never had issues with my bank handing over the coins.
I go through the rolls looking for key dates, mint errors, and oddities.
I utilize a desk lamp with built in magnifier, and a jewelers magnifying glass I wear on my right hand.
Generally speaking, I find an average of 2 mint errors per roll of dimes, and 1 mint error per 4 rolls of pennies.
Wheat pennies are about 1 in 2,500 - silver dimes are about 1 in 6,000.
Most expensive mint error I sold this year was a 2016 P dime with very strong ' Mechanical Doubling' on obverse and reverse( $26 ).
Overall I do not make a lot of $ going through thousands of coins one at a time, but it is a fun little hobby that is very cheap :)

Yes, find a bank, most likely one you have an account with that won't mind you "purchasing" boxes of coins ($25 cents, $100 nickels). Then you need to find a "dump" source, preferably a non-charging one. Those CoinStar fees will cost ya dearly! I've found that if you get coins from one bank, return them to a different bank or another branch. Seems to draw less attention. Now, some banks may charge a nominal fee to dump, but that's the CRH games we play! Even if all you get are $10 at a time, you still have to turn them around. I use the same bank, different branches for getting and dumping. A box od donuts sometimes helps get the teller's to like ya...

And remember that almost all coins you do get in rolls have been put there by people that already have looked them over. Stories of finding anything of value is like the people that tell me how much they won at the race tracks. Just no one ever looses at the track either.

If you want to step it up a notch, spend time on google searching for small coin dealers that look like they've been around for a long long time and who have real store fronts, not just a website. Their BU penny rolls from the 1960s and 70s can be had for as little as $4, depending on year. Most likely they've been searched but that is my point at looking for an old dealer who has had these things sitting around for 30+ years. They searched these a long time ago when the value was much lower. I have found some really nice MS66&67 pennies and MS66 nickels in these old rolls. Plus, you'll be making some coin dealers day by helping clear out old inventory.

My experience with the banks matches what was said above but in my case, I'm mostly dumping. Based on my bank deposit slips for this year, I know I dumped 38,000 nickels in central NJ Wells Fargo branches. I have 4 branches that I've been visiting and I dread my next visit but in a strange way, I look at this as I'm setting these lower grade coins free. Oh wait a minute. There are probably local coin collectors getting some of these rolls and wondering who the heck dumped thousands of 1960's era nickels...

If you picked the lowest possible payment received from a job, the minimum wage, and worked an equivalent number of hours at that job as you might roll hunting, the job will pay more 99+% of the time.

If you got a part time job and used that income for purchasing coins, your collection would grow faster than roll hunting.

HOWEVER the part time job will likely not offer much fun. Coin hunting can be a blast.

It's all about why YOU spend your time.

Thanks moxking & fistfulladirt!

Thanks cladking! If you wouldn't mind showing me some pictures of maybe like here is a roll and here is some nice items you could get out of it sort of deal. That would be awesome!