I have several thousand early Lincolns that my parents and I pulled from circulation in the 1960s. Would I sell them on
ebay without searching them? Absolutely not. There is far too much upside to search. I am examining every single one of them.
I don't think anybody would sell bulk coins today without searching them, at least for the
Red Book variety listings. That said, there are hundreds of possible minor varieties and errors that still exist in the wild. For example, the odds of finding a 1946-S S/D Lincoln are low, but the odds of finding many of the 80+ known RPMs for that date are pretty good. Plugged dates, "BIE" chips, laminations, woodies, and the occasional
Cud are still in the wild.
The occasional "big one" still exists in the wild, and that's what inspires the never-ending hunt. Having reasonable expectations for what is available today is a good foundation.
There are still unlisted varieties and errors in the wild. Don't expect to find the Next Big Thing, but the occasional unlisted RPM or minor
DDO /
DDR hits the radar.
Some dead giveaways that the coins have been searched:
1. The seller has a never-ending supply of the same dates and mints.
2. The seller also has listings for individual collectible varieties or errors.
3. The seller uses ridiculous sales tactics to hype the ordinary: "found in an old barn guarded by a pack of wolves!" or "guaranteed not searched by me" (but probably searched by his brother, uncle, aunt, sister, and grandkids).
4. The seller uses the same photos every week for different lots of the same date and mint or different rolls, but somehow asserts that "these are the actual coins you are buying."
5. The seller "salts" the rolls with an individual desirable end coin, such as a common date
Indian cent or
Liberty nickel. I can attest that even in the very early 1960s,
Indian cents were unicorns and the occasional
Liberty nickel was a nearly dateless slug.
6. The rolls of nickels, dimes, quarters, halves, or silver dollars somehow mysteriously always seem to have one obverse and one reverse coin visible on the ends.
7. The rolls are machine wrapped, but somehow one end is loose enough to be peeled back
juuuuust far enough to see a date or mint mark.
8. The end coins on a supposedly 60 or 70 year old OBW roll are all mysteriously BU.
Coin roll wrapping devices are cheap, and are marketed by the manufacturers of the coin rolls. Hand-held wrapping devices are readily available for under $20. As others have pointed out upthread, the striped rolls only date to the 1960s. The American Banking Association and Federal Reserve agreed on uniform roll colors by denomination around 1969. (The St. Louis Fed has a lot of documents regarding this on its web site, but the search engine is a *bit* clumsy.)
Posted 04/24/2018 5:06 pm
to the CCF!
!
