The Feasibility Of Roll Hunting Complete Sets, Which Ones?

If you did a ton of roll hunting you could probably get somewhat close on the wheat set. I really doubt you would find the 1909S, the 1909SVD, the 1914D, the 1924D, the 1922 plain or the 1931S anytime soon, but it might be possible to get that one around 75% with a few years hunting (heavy). Rosie Dimes will only really be doable for the 1965 and later. You can maybe find the occasional silver one once in a blue moon, but I would not expect to find many. Washington quarters are the same only 10x harder. JFK halves are doable, I have done that one myself as of 2009 (I don't have the newer ones because I stopped hunting). I did have to buy the 1970 JFK, but I only looked for about 1 year all told. I managed 1/2 a Franklin half set during that year as well. You could also do the dollar coins, Sacs and presidents as they come out and I bet you could get enough Susan B Anthony's to search through. Probably not Ikes though.

Those were roll hunting, but I bet they have tailed off a lot in the past 2 years.

Jefferson nickels are doable as you said...

Kennedy halves is completely doable, but the 1970-D is really tough. I thought 1987-P/D would be tough until I found both in the same roll (seemed to be a dumped collection). Getting the newer NIFC might be tricky too. I have about half of the post-2001 NIFC halves, and I don't do a big volume because I don't have many banks willing to order them.

I think FDR dimes is doable. I have a lot of the silver dates, some of the scarcer ones might be tough (I don't really know the series well enough to say, I guess 1955 is pretty scarce). It seems like most roll hunters average one or two silver per box, and all the clad can be found within one or two boxes, so you can do pretty big volume with edge searching.

SBAs are probably doable, unless you're going for the rare varieties. Sacagawea dollars are probably hard because the mintage numbers after 2000 dropped off so steeply and they were not getting used. Presidential dollars are probably easier. Ike's are completely possible, maybe even easy. I've gotten enough randomly that I'm already close to a set, and none of the ones I'm missing are by any means rare. Obviously, there's the that rare 1972 variety, but I don't think that counts for this discussion.

Lincoln sets and Washington quarters are probably ruled out by rare key dates, but memorial cents are doable (the '70-S small date is extremely hard).

I've gotten enough Mercury dimes in circulation that I bet a really dedicated roll searcher could do a short set ('40-'45 or even '34-'45) with huge volume and patience if they live in an good area (maybe one with an older population.) There are roll searchers who've found key dates or have rolls of Barber dimes they've found over the years.

I almost completed the entire State Quarter collection with one box this weekend. That said, I am trying to get a Franklin set together from circulation, and my daughter and I are working on a LWC collection. As stated above though, there are a number I expect we will never find.

If you add the caveats that you are only searching for clad and intended for circulation then halves are very easy, you could do it in a box or two, otherwise it is harder but probably still possible. SBA dollars shouldn't be too hard if you don't worry about the NIFCs ('81), same with Sac's.

Unless you are in it for the challenge, you could just buy uncirculated mint sets, most of them are cheap, the coins are better than you'd find in circulation, and it will be a whole lot faster.

Some of it depends on where you are. I'm near Chicago, so there are a lot of silver searchers in my area and that makes certain sets hard to complete. Here are my opinions of what is considered possible. Obviously, some of these are theoretically possible, so when I say impossible I mean practically impossible.

LWC: Impossible to complete. People have found keys and I'm sure a whole set is out there, but you can't realistically look at enough cents to find them.

LMC: Doable depending on what you consider complete a set. Date/MM set is easy, once you add in even the standard varieties it gets a lot harder. 1970S small date is very hard, 1960 small date is extremely hard.

Buff: Impossible

Jeffs: Definitely possible. A number of people have done it here.

Roosies: Clad (except 1996W) are relatively easy to put together, but the silver issues are much harder to find with fully half of circulation finds being the last year. I'm of the opinion that it's doable, but haven't heard of anyone completing them.

Wash: Clad are doable (but see cladking's comments) but the pre-65 silver set is impossible to complete. The State / Territories / Nation Park quarters are all easy to complete too, but it may take a few years for enough to circulate for you to get them.

Bennies: These were probably doable up until a few years ago, but unless you are in an area untapped by roll hunters, it's probably impossible now.

Kennedys: Doable with a lot of volume. The only rarities are the 70D and 87P&D as previously mentioned. I've also found that '65 is pretty uncommon too - I have more of each of the later date NIFCs than 1965s.

Ikes: A full date set is hard because of the 1973P&D and because you usually don't find enough of these to search. The varieties are difficult but doable too (I've found the 72 type 2 and 3 FEVs for example) but the silver ones are nearly impossible to find.

SBAs: Same problem as the Ikes. You can't find enough to search (usually) and there's a mint set only year too (1981). It's a small set though so you may be able to complete it on the side (I buy every baby dollar I can get from my dump banks).

Sacs: Difficult due to all the NIFCs. Not sure if this is doable or not.

Native American: More doable than SBAs and Sacs - I've actually found all these as incidental pickups without specifically looking for them.

Prez: Easy to complete with a little effort, but the coins tone pretty quickly so the early ones are getting ugly fast! It will probably take awhile to complete these because not a lot are circulated so if you order boxes, they'll likely be solid.

You guys rock! Thanks a lot for the info! I'll save the comprehensive responses to all of you and just condense:

Since I've never touched halves or dollars I'm kind of flabbergasted that you can still get Franklins and Walkers or Ikes (SBAs make more sense) from rolls--the halves make sense but the dollar thing still amazes me since obviously they're different sizes so how are they rolled together? Or are they separate? If you get a box does it come with 1 roll of Ikes and another that is a mix of Sacs/Pres's/etc.? Or is that one of those "just pick a few up from the bank tray at a time" things?

Anywho, as I said above, since I'm pretty much done with nickels (stupid 2009P...ugh) I'm looking to branch out and since the part of roll hunting that I love is, well, the hunt, I have no problem questing for something that's quasi-ridiculously rare but I'd still like to know if I have a chance at it or if it's just a white whale. With that said, even the possibility of coming close is pretty neat.

As far as any decisions? Probably Cents, Quarters and possibly the stray dollar/dime box pickup and I'll see how far I can get with them (of course, I have no intention on stopping the nickel obsession). Eventually I'll work up the courage for halves but that's a bit too much for me right now.

Am I hooked yet? I don't know but I'll be able to tell you more after I finish another roll.

For Ikes, you just have to go into lots of different banks on a regular basis and ask if they've gotten in any "large size dollar coins". I've found about 30 total in the last few months. I've heard of a few people who've actually gotten banks to order them - apparently some casinos still use them and they're provided by some coin services for that purpose.