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 Replies: 14 / Views: 1,538 |
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New Member
United States
18 Posts |
i have been collecting dollar bills for a while and been saving all of my change that is older than me(18) for the last few years. I just stumbled upon this website and have never done any roll searching and am wondering if I should start with cents or nickles and what I should look for/save.
also what do you do with all the coins after you search them, will the same bank be willing to take them back or do I need to open an account at another bank?
Payton
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Moderator
 United States
187702 Posts |
 to the Community! If I were starting over, I would probably go with nickels and build a "normal" set (that is, date and mint, but not varieties) in a folder or album. The Jefferson nickel series can be completed from just searching rolls. Of course, if you limited your Lincoln cents to just the Memorial design, you might be able to complete it as well.  I mentioned skipping varieties, but if this is something that interests you, there are many members here that can advise you better than I.  As for what to do with the "rejects" from searching, you have three choices. Spend them, keep them for later examination, or dump them back at a different bank (to avoid searching the same coins again). Depending on how much you can afford to keep around, the last option is probably your best. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7629 Posts |
Three very valuable pieces of advice: 1. Sort the coins by date before searching. Search through one date at a time. This will get your eyes adjusted to the details of the design used for that one year so you will be able to spot differences. 2. Don't use a 'list' of what to look for because you will miss anything that has not yet been discovered. keep out anything that looks 'odd' and watch for more like it. If you end up with a bunch of odd coins that have the same issue, it's probably something common. 3. Buy a book, look on the web, and ask questions to learn what you are doing. Always keep an example of everything you have pulled out, even if you are told it's nothing. Mark it as such and keep it as a part of your educational reference set. Once you know very well what you are doing, the reference set can go away. The process of learning can take as little as six months or as much as five years. Just depends on how many coins you search through and how well you pick up the subject. If you are looking for anything of value, I would suggest starting with die varieties. Doubled dies and repunched mintmarks are going to be more common in change than errors that have enough value to bother keeping. Most of the errors that are valuable enough to collect are pretty obvious and are not common in change. If you are just searching for dates and mintmarks that have value, a Red Book is all you need, and you can forget everything in my post up to this point...your chances of finding valuable coins in change by date and mintmark alone are going to be very, very slim. |
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Valued Member
United States
116 Posts |
Agree start with nickels, but think you may want to do both. For just a small amount of money you can get many hours of roll searching enjoyment. Just get a couple fo Dansco albums and start filling in the holes.
Method - at first I would get the coins, search them, keep what I wanted, re-roll the coins and take them to a different branch of my bank for deposit. But the re-rolling got old for me and it got really hard for me to take the time to sit and count coins out for rolls- really boring. And then hauling them around in my car until I can take the time to get to another bank. So I started taking the loss (not sure I see it that way) and dumping the coins in a local CoinStar machine. Take the receipt, get the cash, drive across the street to the bank and get more coins.
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Valued Member
United States
117 Posts |
Payton - you're from WheresGeorge, aren't you? I recognize the name from the bill collecting / numismatic forum...
Joe (Joe in Woodlake on the forums over there, Joe in San Francisco on the regular Wheres George site)
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Valued Member
United States
117 Posts |
Also - I've pretty much just started collecting as well. Started with cents. I've been through only about $35.00 worth of rolls, and have all of the Lincoln Memorial slots in my books full, about 30% with AU+ examples, but missing 2 of the 3 small date 1982's, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1972, 2004, and 2009 Philly. Also found about 45 wheats (most from 5 lucky rolls), 20 or so different dates. I like cents. It's cheap - you can recycle the pennies at a different bank from where you get them easily. Worst case scenario, you can go to CoinStar. I've started looking for varieties / errors now. I've set aside all my different nickels and dimes, just haven't started roll searching for more - nickels are next!
Joe
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Valued Member
United States
99 Posts |
What you look for totally depends on what you're goal is. You can roll search for dates to fill an album, varieties of any kind, or valuable dates/varieties. Its pretty easy to search rolls for dates to fill an album or possible valuable dates. If you want to get into variety searching, you pretty much need a microscope setup unless you've got crazy good eyes. But even if you've got good eyes, I think variety searching without a microscope would be a total strain. Does anybody here actually search for varieties regularly without a microscope and not go crazy? The best resource for a beginner is a " Red Book". This will explain the different coins minted and a few of the more popular varieties in each series. It will also tell you the ballpark value of coins. If you want to get into varieties then books such as the Cherrypickers Guides can be helpful. Its my opinion that variety searching is something that takes alot of dedication and isn't really something for beginners, but if you get interested this is a great forum to gain knowledge from. If you're just getting a few rolls at a time from your bank, then yes its best to return your coins to a different bank since they might end up handing you back your already searched rolls at some point. However, if you pick up rolls by the box then you don't have to worry about that since each box comes directly from their coin supplier and would be a mix of coins from many different banks. A box is 50 rolls of coins and is a little box of coins sealed by their coin supplier. A box of pennies is $25, nickels $100, etc. Welcome to the forums and coin roll searching! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2541 Posts |
My best piece of advice - don't use coinstar. I believe they charge about 8%. You are better off flushing the money down the toilet. Open small accounts at mutiple "Dump" banks and re-deposit sorted coin there. You can buy a cheap coin tray that will show you how many coins you need to get 50 cents in a cent roll, or $2 in a nickel roll.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2520 Posts |
 Using coinstar is throwing away money (Unless you have it to throw away). |
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New Member
 United States
18 Posts |
Edited by payton hand
05/08/2009 12:05 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3098 Posts |
Hey, I'm going to college next year, too!
Now that you have it sorted by year, you would need a good eye. There's varieties of each year to look for, like doubled dies, large and small dates, wide AMs and things like that. CopperCoins will fill you in on what to look for.
**Also, it's just what I do, but I keep all the copper pennies (not the zinc we have now) because the intrinsic value (metal itself) is worth ~2c. All the copper ones are 1982 and before. Some 1982s are zinc and some are copper.
Edited by wd1040
05/08/2009 12:09 am
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Valued Member
United States
117 Posts |
I bought the cheap Whitman folders - 12 bucks for the set of 3 from the local coin shop. If you google something like " Lincoln Penny varieties," you'll find some of the known errors and varieties to look for. It can be time-consuming. I spend only about 5-10 seconds per coin beyond looking at the date and mint mark, and that's still maybe 10 minutes per roll. Maybe a bit less. I'm disappointed that I haven't found more non-Canadian foreign coins in my rolls - when I'm at work, I always bring home the World coins I get from customers. I'd throw the pfennig into a 2X2. I don't think either of those are off-center enough to be errors, but wait until a more experienced collector comes along. Joe Edited by hrhomer
05/08/2009 01:12 am
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New Member
United States
18 Posts |
is this an error? http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/4531/1025220.jpghttp://img11.imageshack.us/img11/3734/1025222f.jpghttp://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8301/1025221.jpgi still have my coins sorted out by year because I do not know what to do next...i pulled all 98,99,00 coins so I can look for a WAM but am going to have to find a magnifing glass because I can't see the AM well and am not exactly sure what to look for. i also found some S mint coins not sure what is special about them other than lower mint numbers but someone posted them in the rool finds section... 69-3 70-2 71-3 72-1 73-1 74-2 i have some cent folders and a nickel folder coming late this week, aswell as some 2X2 things. can anyone explain what to do with each year or what happened to the coin linked to. Payton |
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Valued Member
United States
117 Posts |
I'm a newbie here as well, but I've never seen anything like that penny. I'll defer judgment to people better informed. Here's a pretty good illustration of the Wide AM. The "FG" artist signature is FARTHER from the memorial in a Close AM, and CLOSER to the memorial on a Wide AM. It's an easy clue to see if you're not sure what you have. Here is a list of better known cent varieties. Not all, by any means. As far as saving, I save all wheat cents, anything older than about 1975 that looks stunning, and anything I need to fill a hole in my folder. I don't save S-mint pennies, unless they fit the above criteria. Where do you live? I live on the west coast, and very seldom find Wide AM candidates, because the D-mints don't have a Wide AM variety, as far as people know. And all I get is D-mint. If you live on the East Coast, I bet you have more Philly cents to look through. Joe Edited by hrhomer
05/14/2009 01:24 am
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Valued Member
United States
117 Posts |
Forgot to say -you should post that coin on the error forum. They'll know.
Joe
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Replies: 14 / Views: 1,538 |
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Posted 05/06/2009 5:56 pm
