To Buy Or To Search LWC's

I only buy bulk either from members here or at estate sales. With the exception of my 1909 VDB.

Well myself I roll search and buy. I buy the ones I put in my Dansco album. Unless I get really lucky. I save all my wheaties unless they are just really nasty. My buy a push in for the circulated ones

I like to find mine. I've bought a couple, but only at a fraction of their value.I've been collecting LWC's for over 40 years and still need a 14-d,22 no d, and a 55 DDO. I almost think completing the set would be a let down.The fun for me is in the search or finding a key in a large lot at auction.

I suspect that roll searching is just about the poorest method of finding coins. Naturally there is always the exception, but I think it's really to late to find anything anymore. There is always the people that have had coins laying around for years and due to the economy are now turning them in to banks. And for some unknown reason they take the time to roll them. Same with criminals that steal coin collections.
I USED to buy $50 bags of Cents from different banks all the time and built up a fantastic amount of sets of them. This was a long time ago though. You must remember that many of the older coins have mintages of below 100,000,000 and many are in the low millions. Now if you consider how many have been melted down, thrown in lakes, rivers, oceans. Then consider how many are hoarded by Copper hoarders. Then consider our population now at over 300,000,000 and then throw in Canada and Mexico populations. And almost every kid on Earth collects pennies you know. Really not much chance today of finding a complete collection in change.
BUT then again, you really never know.

I had a LWC collection that I had put together as a teenager by roll searching and buying the occasional mixed wheatie roll from the local coin store. Last year I decided to transfer them to a Dansco album. After removing coins that were harshly cleaned or badly damaged, I discovered that I was 35 coins away from a completed set of LWC in VG or better condition.

I am buying the remaining coins individually. Right now, I have 16 to go: 1914-D, 1931-S, and a random scattering of dates that I just haven't seen nice examples of yet. One of the side effects of this method of collecting is that the keys and semi-keys are in better shape than the coins around them, because I am selecting them more carefully.

Well I enjoyed reading everyone's take on the issue. I will agree with many of you that searching is fun and sometimes successful, but the chances of finding the quality we yearn for is not quite as successful!

Roll searching is fun you never know whats is in that next roll.I look for errors and blank planchet + dates to fill albums I want to fill as many coin books as I can so I can give them to my kids and grand kids.