Roll Hunting, What Is Your Technique?

Most tellers don't know why I ask for rolls of cents (unless I was a business owner). They usually don't know what coins to look for and what I'm looking for. Most of the tellers think I am looking for the newer wrapped coins, but I tell them I want the older coins. I explained to one teller that pre-82 cents were made of copper, and some people collect those. I didn't want to say that I found Canadian cents or Indian heads because maybe they would change their method of wrapping coins, and then I wouldn't find any of those coins.

One thing that worked well for me, is to have a good friend with a business account at a large bank. He can order whatever qty he wants and they neve bat an eye. I've had him pick up 10K at a time and it was never a problem. Also for returns, we just dumped them in Ballistic Bags and dropped them off. Two days later the money hit his account and he cut me a check. It was very profitable for a while. I funded my lincoln addiction for about two years going through 10-20K a week in halves. Then it dried up and slowly wasn't worth the effort. I live in Hawaii now and your luck to get two loose at a bank (Clad) and when you order boxes they bring you Solid date OBW clad rolls

you're lucky, maine. they get pretty pissy with me when I dump where I buy. not that they won't accept it or anything, just that they get pissy.

That's not good since I dump where I buy.

I'd really like to find someone that has a load of coins that have been laying around for a long time that they want to get rid of so I can make a reasonable offer. It seems that is a cool way to search through older coins, instead of getting a few here and there in modern bank rolls.

I think the main point is communicating with your bank,or finding a "friendly" bank. My bank has been just great but that's how I ended up with them to begin with. The bags I buy from them are sealed and labeled for shipment to the Fed, but they don't seem to mind giving them to me. Their counting machine charges 5%, but with pennies, that's not a problem. Larger denominations I roll myself and they accept them with no problem.

fistfull..one reason is that the teller in charge of the coin counter told me...second reason is that the bags are labeled From: my bank To: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia,Ten Independence Mall,Philadelphia,Pa 19106

Just A COUPLE OF COMMENTS. First,don't be so down on customer wrapped rolls, the best stuff I have found has come mostly from cwr's. For example,I have gotten complete rolls of wheat cents six different times,one was all 43 steels. I also had a nickel roll with 5 Liberty nickels,8 buffaloes with dates and 2 without. Most folks don't look at what they are rolling or just cash in collections at face value. Second,I mark my dump rolls when I return them to the bank. There are 5 different banks I use and the tellers know(or I inform them if they don't )that when I trade rolls I have already searched them. If you dump coins in a counting machine obviously you need another method. Third,contrary to what many on this forum may think,not many people look at their change or get rolls to search. When I try to trade rolls with a new teller I almost always get the same question"Why would you want more of what you just cashed in?" When I explain that I search them for"old coins",they just look at me like I need to get a life so don't assume that cwrs are picked through. Last,remember,there will ALWAYS be periods of drought when roll searching so don't quit when things get slow,the treasure may be in the next roll!

Hey, I've never been a roll hunter, but I've always been a pocket change searcher. Anytime I get change somewhere, I check it out. I've had some great finds this way. I swear one store where I used to work would always give me something interesting once a week, and I didn't even tell the clerk I liked coins. It was like whoever shopped there paid with old coins half the time.

In any case, how do people sort? Do you use any sort of device to split the copper from zinc, and silver from copper, etc? Do you go by feel of the coin, or do you inspect each one, etc. Obviously going through rolls and rolls sounds like it takes a lot of man power. I'm almost wondering if a $100 electric sorter is a good investment to at least filter the out the metal contents, and then to start inspecting closer from there.