How Many Lincoln Cents Looked At Before Finding One Of Value?

Depending on what he calls an error. A lot of what people call errors like coin damage is not an error, but damage. A lot of what people call errors are die cracks, chips, breaks, clashes, polishing other common events are what I call die events. Not worth a premium. What I call as a mint error are usually one time happenings. Wrong planchette, double struck, weak strikes, basically striking errors. Not die events that are common. Partial collars, thinned planchets, off centers, ... a lot of items found on err-ref.com that happened as more of a one time event. Finding them is more of a one time find in the wild. Kind of like panning for gold in your backyard. So how many coins before finding an error?

It usually takes time to get good at going through rolls. It took me a lot of time at first to go through them. Be on the lookout for any obvious. Look for Die Cracks, big Die Chips, Cuds, Die Clashes, extremely Over Polished Dies, Partial Collars, Indents, Stiff Collars, Off Center strikes, Wide AM varieties, Close AM varieties, and the flared FG variety on the 1988 LMC. This would be a good start on what to look for.

I go through 5 rolls in about 15 minutes , but then again I'm just a date, mint and condition collector .

I can't even begin to fairly answer your question about how many I go through before finding one of value because it's sooo all over the place.. I'm not sure I could even come up with a good average.. If I catch a crappy bank box I can easily go a dozen rolls before finding anything worth keeping for any reason.. If I catch a good unc roll I can have half of it in flips by the time I get to the 50th coin..

How long to go through a roll is easier.. First off though, lately I'm lucky to dedicate an hour to roll searching -- and I only get that cos it's my main wind down to hitting the sack while already in the sack instead of reading.. Bank wrap / customer wrap rolls are like 3/hr if decent to maybe 5/hr if crap cos ya still gotta look at the ones that aren't dissolving in or sticking to your fingers.. Unc rolls tend to be one-and-done if nothin's happenin' to multiple days if it's in a giving mood since I usually 'sleeve' & label at each find..

Swamp

Kind of funny you make mention, Coop -- cos until the time it became totally cost prohibitive (and truth be told, until just a couple years ago regardless) the g/f & I would make at least one trip a year up into the Carolinas or N GA n camp at spots where we could do this exactly..

As a side note to everyone: The reason one-time branch mints Charlotte and Dahlonega were chosen has nothing to do with "pretty location" or "location drawn out of a hat.." Can you guess what that reason is..? Hint: See quote..

Swamp

Lol. Nice.

Nice John1! Will you be posting pictures anywhere?




What is a "bar on column" error?

The "bar on column" is not an error, but a variety, since it happened in the die making process. Anyway, it's a minor Doubled Die Reverse on the middle column, where Abe Lincoln is.