Why Do People Bid On This Stuff! Ebay Wheat Rolls

Welcome to the forum, twocents!

Generally speaking, most of us here would recommend staying far away from "unsearched" rolls listed on ebay. It seems that there is an oddly high proportion of "unsearched" rolls that have a key date or some attractive oddity on the end(s). And then the remaining 48-49 are just junk.

I.e., it's a marketing gimmick. Now, if you're looking to fill holes in an album or folder or something, you can sometimes get good deals on those rolls. Just don't be fooled into thinking that no one has gone through and cherry picked the cherries.

I only buy things I can see on ebay. Like a specific coin, or 4-5 specific coins. But I would give that same advise to buying anything on ebay... see what you are buying. If you want a 1914d or a 1909s VDB penny, pony up the dough and buy one. Don't think you will ever find one in an "unsearched" roll. Unsearched rolls are ALWAYS a scam. Although I will say for every loser buyer and seller on ebay there are probably 100+ good ones.

Trying to think what Admiral Ackbar would say about these kind of auctions...

oh yeah...

IT'S A TRAP!

y you guys hattin'. I bought two rolls from him and they were all 1916-Ds.


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snark with purposeful misspellings.

I went in on three rolls of cents on ebay just for the heck of it. I realized that these were likely seeded rolls but I was really just curious how bad of deal it was. Every roll the seller was selling had something "exceptional" on the ends -- an indian head, obverse of a 1909 LWC, silver, etc. Most of the rolls were going for $45 - $60. I sniped probably 50 of his auctions to finally get my 3 rolls for about $35 each. These rolls had many older LWCs -- the higher production year teens and 20s. Each roll averaged 10 Indian Head cents. As far a grades there were quite a few common date AU LWCs, an AU stealie (which some people just love but whatever), an AU 1909 VDB, a number of VF-XF indian heads, and some 1950s LWCs which are AU+. In retrospect, it wasn't a complete rip off but it certainly wasn't a deal either. Had I paid the $45 - $60 that most of the rolls go for, I would have definitely felt ripped off.

In any case, it was an interesting $100 to spend, but not something I'm going to do again.

One of the seller's feedback narratives mentioned that opening the rolls felt like playing the lottery. I think that's what drives most buyers of these rolls. Every once in a while feedback gets left that some real gem was found. Even when buyers know the rolls are seeded, they see it as a lottery and hope they receive the roll seeded with the gem.

Ask yourselves, if you had a roll of coins, with a 1916 Merc on one end and an Indian Head penny on the other, would you sell it on ebay as an unsearched roll?

Or would you open it to see what was in it?

As I said, as long as you pay fair for the enders, no biggy. I have bid on several with FEs showing. They went above my limit so I did not get them. I have purchased rolls with nothing showing and got decent rolls that I was happy with. So no, they are not all rip offs. I surf those listings all the time.