On the forum we have had many discussions of "unsearched" rolls and bags of coins.
As a dealer I get bags of
LWC all the time in quantities of a few hundred to 5k.
Recently a middle aged woman brought in 10 bags of
LWC. Each bag was a 5k bag. Our buy price is 2 cents a coin, as we wholesale them for 3 cents a bag. Though we do have to go through them and look for culls, IHCs, Canadian ect. We also of course look for coins to keep at the shop or to sort into rolls that bring in higher values.
As I gave her her check for $1000 she smiled and said, "don't bother we searched them for all the valuable coins first". Asking if she found anything she said proudly "We found two 1931-S pennies!".
The collection had been her Grandfathers, who had recently passed away. Apparently he had been saving his cents since the 1920s....
This searched collection had Red
LWC in every year and most mint marks. Including a very nice 1926-S RB/RD that more than covered the cost of the aquistion. I don't want people to think it was bag upon bag of Red cents. It was not, but the Grandfather must have put away, like we do, coins that he came upon in circulation that were RB/Rd since the 20s. Most of the coins were Philly's with a healthy dose of Denver issues. SF was, as expected in the midwest, not very common. Oth, the old man knew about SF coins and obviously threw every one could find into his bags.
There were some very nice RB
IHC, though only a very few would grade MS. Many more, however, would grade XF-AU RB.
As a post script, a month later her brother came in and sold us his nickels. Apparently each of the Grandchildren had
inherited parts of his collection.
He had done his homework. We negotiated a very satisfactory price on his collection. He mentioned that his sister had gone "looked it up on the internet" to find what coins to pull, and had apparently just looked at the big four and did find, besides the aforementioned 1931-S', a single 14-D.
The lesson, I guess, is that it depends on who is doing the searching. One of "us" or one of "them".
I do have to say that after decades in the buisness, this is the best cent buy I have made in at least 20 years.
Posted 02/15/2021 4:11 pm
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