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 Replies: 20 / Views: 2,894 |
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Rest in Peace
United States
3039 Posts |
I am. Every day ebay has cent rolls showing a Flying Eagle or Lincoln VDB on the ends (sometimes both.) There's one on there now with a Flying Eagle on one end and a D Mercury dime on the other end. Seller claims not to know what's in between but he does know that there are Indians and S mint wheaties in there. How? It's amazing what's on there.  CAVEAT EMPTOR ! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4989 Posts |
Formula is pretty simple - they buy 5000 or so very common date wheat pennies and then "sprinkle in" a very small number of well worn indians, teen dates, S mint marks, etc... keeping their average cost per coin very low.
They then randomize and roll these up, stick a couple bucks worth of nice coins on the visible edges, and sell the rolls as "unsearched". Buyers pay 500% markup for the possibility to find some of the (cheap) "treasure" buried in those rolls. Similar to instant lottery.
And of course comments are full of happy, and in most cases very dumb, buyers who are ecstatic to find the occasional indian or mint mark.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1080 Posts |
the time I got suckered was "old nickels" with a V nickel on one end and a Shield nickel on the other end. I didn't realize "old nickels" meant buffalos. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
This makes me kinda weary about listing my pre-60 Jefferson rolls that I have been accumulating. I have some that have not seen the light of day for the past 25 years.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
570 Posts |
I fell for it once when I first started buying on ebay years ago. I never made that mistake again. I've heard the term called "loaded" rolls, as the seller does exactly what fenton says above. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1150 Posts |
There are always new buyers coming into the market, who are mostly naive when it comes to this old scam. Its sad what people are willing to do for a dollar, however they probably justify it by not looking at the specific date of each crap coin they throw in the rolls.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1348 Posts |
Its gambling. People have ebay adds just stating you'll win a random amount of money. The house always has the edge! |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10045 Posts |
These are always a source of amusement to me.  I don't know which is funnier--the hokey stories of "unsearched" rolls endcapped with much older coins, or how the rolling job always looks like somebody did it while drunk.  We really need a "Worst of ebay" gallery for the hokiest coin auctions. Edited by DVCollector
07/19/2011 1:00 pm
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Valued Member
United States
374 Posts |
yes I like seeded rolls better. lol the biggest scam on ebay. around 10 or 11 years ago there was a person who was getting stupid money for rolls. If my memory serves me right he said the rolls were from a estate unsearched. He did have a few people who found keydate coins. So it was like the lottery few winners mostly losers. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3755 Posts |
Some are fakes, some are not. Just depends. I have bought some listed as unsearched and found a nice mix but nothing major. I got one roll that was primarily 40s and 50s. The key is not paying more than the end coin is worth. I do believe some of these are legit. If I snag one for 30 bucks with a FE on the end, it was worth it. Thats how I go about it.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Quote:These are always a source of amusement to me. I don't know which is funnier--the hokey stories of "unsearched" rolls endcapped with much older coins, or how the rolling job always looks like somebody did it while drunk. We really need a "Worst of ebay" gallery for the hokiest coin auctions. I'd like to see that too. So many of those UNSEARCHED coins are a little old now. Also, those My (Dad, Mom, Uncle, Aunt, etc.) just died and left me these coins. That should be a standard and you just cross out the ones that don't apply. Not a real lot of stories yet about the short rolls but someone that works in a bank by me told me that is one of their major objections to people bringing in rolls of coins. |
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Rest in Peace
 United States
3039 Posts |
I guess smoker is right. If you don't pay more for the roll than the value of the end coin(s) (with reasonable shipping) you won't get hurt too badly. You might even make that rare find (like a nice slot machine hit.)
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New Member
United States
48 Posts |
Growing up, my father ran a baseball card shop. He had this card vending machine where you would put in a quarter and get a random card. He would always mix in about 5-10 expensive cards in with all the commons and list them on the front of the machine. It was a gamble but the kids in the neighborhood loved the chance of getting an expensive card for .25.
I guess I wouldn't have a problem with these auctions if they were ran in a similar fashion. Treat it like a true lottery. In their descriptions they make it sound like you are guaranteed to find some of those key date coins.
In another thread on the same topic, someone brought up the point of the end coins having damage on the other side of the coin. Might take this into consideration also.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10635 Posts |
These auctions should be shut down and not allowed on ebay. They are intentionally misleading buyers, especially new to coin collectors. I wonder how many people they have driven off from these scams? I don't get why they aren't getting negative feedback? It seems there are an increasing number of these auctions! Will ebay listen if we start reporting them as fraudulent? -Les |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3592 Posts |
As somebody already mentioned, people enjoy gambling or these things wouldn't be so popular. I think the lottery is the biggest scam there is,but people enjoy that too.Here in Pa the lottery is supposed to benefit the elderly, but I'll bet it hurts more elderly than it helps.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10045 Posts |
Quote:Will ebay listen if we start reporting them as fraudulent? How would ebay disprove their claims? All these "unsearched rolls", etc. rely heavily on the seller's word. Part of the scamming problem I see is how ebay grades feedback and how negative ratings are buried away from view on ebay's site. If there was better transparency, I suspect there would be less scammers. As one example, just compare eBay's "99.8%" to THIS.  Edited by DVCollector
07/21/2011 11:00 pm
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Replies: 20 / Views: 2,894 |
Posted 07/19/2011 11:30 am
