Searching for error/variety cents

[MarkAL]

I was wondering what thoughts were out there regarding the best way of finding error/variety type cents? I am thinking rolled coins and that the best way would be to search new mint rolls, since they have never been searched. But, where do you get new mint rolled cents?

[Maineman750]

Ebay is one way.....personally I think mint rolls are boring.....all of my searching was done of $59 bags I got from my bank, and asking friends to look through their penny jars

[hasfam]

I've been at it since 97' and have searched every possible place. But mostly I buy $25 bank boxes and search those. Other places are eBay, coin shops, friends....actually, anywhere. I always let me people know what my hobby is and that I'm always looking for some pennies to examine. That has scored me an awful lot of friendly local exchanges or transactions of pennies and some great finds. Good luck

[Petespockets55]

I agree with both above for finding varieties at face value, although they are becoming much harder to come by.

I do have a few questions about your preference.
(The methods above work well for newer varieties but not for wheat cents. Even memorial cents varieties are becoming harder to find.)

Are you wanting to only search for what you can get at face value?
(Different parts of the country might have fewer people looking, so locations with low populations might help to find decent rolls to search.)

Are you willing to spend more than face value to get better material to search?
Weekend coin shows often have rolls by year and Local Coin Stores (LCS) often have loose coins sold by the decade, in different grades.

It kind of depends on how much moola you have available to "invest" in the search. I use the term invest lightly because searching really can be a form of entertainment.

Best of luck investing in your entertainment and we hope you share your finds as they happen. We love to see when that happens.

[eaxtellcoin]

Be careful with mint rolled cents. Most older dates, the end has been un rolled just enough to check the coins then pushed back in and somewhat re sealed. These rolls can go for way over gray sheet value. For example I saw a roll of 1958-D's - ""Cent"" at one of the bigger coin shops. Grey sheet - ""Dealer"" bid is $9.00 a roll - they wanted $18.00 for the one roll. These are original wrapped. Tubes are more reasonable but finding RPM's or Double Dies is about 20% you will find anything. If you are looking for laminations, strike throughs, cuds, then tubes will be fine. Best place for tubed rolls is a local coin shop. May have to go to a show and ask a few local dealers if they have anything they will part with reasonable at the shop. - then go to there shop. This is not a cheap hobby. Coins are hard to come by now by searching - dealer's don't want to let go of BU rolls, and the ones they have will cost more than face value... Your going to have to ....Work.... to find a variety.. Sorry this is just how it is... Pick out a date you want to collect - then buy what you can to see what you can find.. I hope this kind of helps.. Eric

[makecents]

It's fun to buy mint rolls from time to time but when I have time and it has been very sparing, as of late, with other "projects getting in the way, my favorite, is still bank bricks. I don't mind weeding through the shields and ugly cents, to possibly find a nice variety. It's a bonus to find a nice variety in good condition but is not that important to me. I guess it's what is important to you. If you want to find a high end variety and high end coin, I'm not much help. As Eric said though, you have to "WORK" for it, regardless of what you are looking for, and how you go about it, it's not easy. Good luck!

Jon.

[MarkAL]

WOW!! Thanks for the replies. I'm very grateful.
All of your advice is great. I appreciate it.
Right now I'm not looking to "invest". I do like the hunt. I went ahead yesterday and picked up a brick from one of the local banks. Been going through it. Actually found 9 wheat cents, which was surprising. Oldest was a 1920, just barely readable Best condition was a 51-D I would put at VG -F, but probably the most "exciting" were 2 S's. A 1944 and a 1945. Though I'm looking at the 44-S again, and really it's not in that bad a condition. The wheat ears are still pretty well defined. You can still see the separation in the lines and the kernels at the bottom are identifiable.

When I'm done with it, I'll replace the coins I took out and roll them all back up and pick up another one.

Anyway, again, I really appreciate the advice.
Mark