Rolls Or Bags From The Mint? Or Both?

Just because you get rolled coins from a bank doesn't mean they have seen circulation. Those bags have to go somewhere and they end up in the hands of a company like Brinks which puts them into rolls and boxes and, subsequently, sells them to banks. Those coins have never seen circulation.

Go to the largest bank in your area where they'll like have "Federal Rolls" in stock. They will be genuine and likely to be not too marked up. Good news is that you are buying them at face value so anything you don't use, you'll get to spend elsewhere. My experience has been to buy at minimum 5 to 10 rolls as sometimes it takes that many rolls to find several really clean coins. The Mint, the Fed, or whomever wrapped the coins can be pretty rough on them during handling so just because you have a Fed roll doesn't mean all are MS67s and MS68s.

During the 70's and 80's when I was young and spent my minimum wage earnings at the local bank, I would order penny rolls directly from the Federal Reserve; however, it had to be ordered through the bank. I later learned that only the large banks supported this and back then, I grew up and worked nearby to a large bank, I thought that was how you get rolls -- it all seemed normal to me. I've been out of collecting for nearly 30 years and know much has changed. This year I'm into nickels... Two weeks ago I was at a Wells Fargo branch in Pennington NJ dumping 2,000 nickels (that I rolled) for deposit and the local manager asked me about them. We had a good laugh as that was an unusual deposit. She said in her 30 years at the bank, she has been collecting quarter rolls and she referred to them as Fed Rolls. I didn't realize you can still order Fed Rolls. My little bit of recent research shows that the large banks can make special orders to Fed Reserve but that the orders are not always fulfilled. If somebody knows the details on this, it would be an interesting conversation to discuss. I'm heading back to that same branch next week with 4,000 nickels and intend to strike up another conversation with the manager. I'll ask about her reference to Fed Rolls to see if she still places orders for them.

I'll have an update for you all next week after I speak to this one particular bank manager who says she collects "Fed Reserve" quarter rolls at face value. I'll share the facts as I personally have not picked up coin rolls from a bank since the 1980s. All of my coin rolls I buy now are from people advertising on the Internet and pay around double face value per roll depending on year, sometimes more. My interest is 1960s 70s and 80s, not 2018 so let me just close my pie hole and wait till I know details mid to late next week.