Cool Lincoln Roll Finds (From Bank Rolls) - Post Yours!

It's always a pleasant and most unexpected surprise to find a proof coin in circulation. I found a proof 40% silver 1776-1976 Bicentennial Quarter in change I received about 30 years ago. I remember how surprised I was that anyone would have spent it at face value. Go figure...

Got a couple of decent LMC's. Not sure if these are actually worth putting aside or if I just have too many pennies :-p

59-D
62-D

Nice finds, Rackster! . The 1925 in VF is particularly sweet to discover. Any time you find an Early Lincoln (pre-1934) that grades above VG it feels like you just scored a touchdown.

I personally look for anything of value, e.g. Wheats, (especially higher grade Early Lincolns), IHC's, foreign coins, supergrade Gems, BU's to form rolls with, proofs, dimes that end up in penny rolls, die varieties, mint errors and, yes, plain old copper as well....all with an eye towards re-selling these on ebay either individually or in bulk, depending on what I'm selling.

Since you mainly seem concerned about copper, I keep it because it can be flipped in bulk on ebay for a modest profit if you sell about $100 worth of old copper cents as a bulk lot. I think folks typically clear about $25 - $30 after ebay & PayPal fees, so it's pretty easy money if you go through lots of boxes.

My personal goal here is not to get rich, (that's just not very likely to happen unless I find a bona fide BU 1969-S DDO), but to earn enough extra cash on the side from time to time to help offset some of the costs of my more serious numismatic pursuits, which mainly involve cherry-picking classic U.S. Coins that are strong for their grade with full details that have been slabbed by reputable TPG's like PCGS, NGC, and ANACS.

In the meantime I derive pleasure from the treasure-hunting aspect of searching coin rolls which provides many hours of enjoyable relaxation at very minimal cost. I also enjoy the learning aspect of coin roll hunting because it has motivated me to learn about rare die varieties, errors, foreign coins, etc., which I also find enjoyable as a long-time numismatist who has been in this hobby since 1970.

But, like so many others have previously noted, what you keep is wholly dependent on what your personal tastes and goals are. I think many get into CRH hoping to make fast money. Most of those folks probably don't stay at it long because it requires serious numismatic knowledge to maximize the financial returns and many lack that knowledge which takes time and lots of READING and STUDY to acquire.

Some stick with it, though, because they find that even when they are not finding particularly valuable coins they still are having a whale of a good time looking for them! Hopefully you will fall into the latter category. It's a nice, harmless little hobby that will keep you off the streets and out of the bars and won't empty your wallet.

I love that George '32! Terrific find sa!

Nice finds! Nice photo!

Cheer up. Bad boxes happen.

if you are going to CRH then you just have to accept that this comes with the territory and just move on to the next box. Don't let it discourage you. This is the type of activity where only perseverance yields nice rewards. If you want instant gratification I'm afraid CRH will probably wear you out pretty quickly.

This is why I chose to go with searching Lincoln Cent rolls, because every box yields something....provided you are willing to look for all that a box might possibly yield that is of some added value. Even in this instance you did not go away empty handed, which cannot be said for folks who search larger denominations trying to find silver coins. Those folks regularly go through multiple boxes without finding anything worth keeping! Now THAT would depress me.

I just completed my 4th box. Here are the finds:

* 1916-D Early Lincoln Wheat cent - AG Condition. Cool to find, but it's just too bad it was not in better shape. Still, it was a milestone coin, as it is now the oldest Lincoln I've ever pulled from circulation.
* 3 More Wheaties from the 40's & 50's.
* 3 Canadian Cents - Oldest was 1958.
* 2 Clad Roosevelt dimes.
* 56 AU/BU LMR's dating from 1965 - 1982, including one (1) 1970-S and one (1) 1971-S and three (3) 1972-S cents. Six of the AU's went into my Lincoln folder as upgrades. My photo of the AU/BU's shows the remaining 50 coins, of which 44 are BU.
* 422 copper Lincoln cents were pulled, in total, which worked out to 16.88 % of the box.

Nothing too thrilling here, but it was a reasonably worthwhile box. The penny tubes of keepers continue to grow.

I was hoping to find some errors or die varieties, but no luck this time around. Just a lot of MAD's that I threw back.

Although I have good loupes (10x and 20x), I still find it difficult to pick out doubled dies and RPM's, etc. with them. Too much eye strain for these 52-year old eyes. So I finally took the plunge and bought a nice USB Digital Microscope, (the ProScope Edu from Bodelin Technologies) to help with this. It's a 5 Megapixel model with 10x - 300x magnification. Can't wait to try it out this week looking for die varieties. This should be a whole lot easier looking at the coins on a 23" monitor under high magnification.

Here are the pics from this week's searches:

The Box:


The Roll Ends:


The 1916-D Lincoln in AG Condition:




The other Wheaties and Canadians:




The AU/BU LMR's:


The New USB Digital Microscope: