@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
Cheap fun, who cares what you would make at 7-11. 😆
Just know your probabilities going in and have realistic expectations.
Don't forget the big 1983 doubled die reverse. I found one roll searching once, and it was my best find:
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Roll searching gets tedious after a while (for me anyway).... So searching a 55 gallon drum of cents is not even feasible for me. Good luck... Cheers, RickO
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
I see records of sales of individual rolls- are people buying 20 roll lots?
Personally, if I had a 55 gallon drum of cents, I would rather use them whenever I had to pay the government or a business that I’m not fond of. Parking tickets, comcast bill, city furniture, the possibilities are endless. Can you imagine having a freight truck drop off 300,000 cents at the tax collectors office? That would give me much more pleasure than selling them would
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
There are nowhere near that many selling on eBay.
Lower price = increased quantity demanded. And eBay isn't the only venue.
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
There are nowhere near that many selling on eBay.
Lower price = increased quantity demanded. And eBay isn't the only venue.
Not necessarily. Cart. horse. Supply glut lowers prices but it also saturates demand. This is not an in demand commodity. You can easily be fooled by a few ebay sales. They aren't always reproducible, especially at scale.
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
I see records of sales of individual rolls- are people buying 20 roll lots?
Wheat cents are available and often sold on eBay in bag lots (5000 coins), along with bags of individual dates.
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
There are nowhere near that many selling on eBay.
Lower price = increased quantity demanded. And eBay isn't the only venue.
Not necessarily. Cart. horse. Supply glut lowers prices but it also saturates demand. This is not an in demand commodity. You can easily be fooled by a few ebay sales. They aren't always reproducible, especially at scale.
Bags of 5000 Lincoln Memorial cents are routinely sold on eBay at multiples of face value, and many of these bags contain coins that have been in circulation. So at this scale such sales are reproducible and routinely reproduced. And lowering prices will usually increase the quantity demanded, which is why merchants often cut prices on excess inventory in order to move it out of the store more quickly.
Lower prices can also attract new demand. I'm old enough to remember the sudden and unexpected release of multiple bags of scarce date New Orleans Morgan dollars in 1962. The publicity surrounding this event drove heightened collector interest in Morgans, and brought many new collectors into the fold.
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
There are nowhere near that many selling on eBay.
Lower price = increased quantity demanded. And eBay isn't the only venue.
Not necessarily. Cart. horse. Supply glut lowers prices but it also saturates demand. This is not an in demand commodity. You can easily be fooled by a few ebay sales. They aren't always reproducible, especially at scale.
Bags of 5000 Lincoln Memorial cents are routinely sold on eBay at multiples of face value, and many of these bags contain coins that have been in circulation. So at this scale such sales are reproducible and routinely reproduced. And lowering prices will usually increase the quantity demanded, which is why merchants often cut prices on excess inventory in order to move it out of the store more quickly.
Lower prices can also attract new demand. I'm old enough to remember the sudden and unexpected release of multiple bags of scarce date New Orleans Morgan dollars in 1962. The publicity surrounding this event drove heightened collector interest in Morgans, and brought many new collectors into the fold.
You can't really be saying that you think 1983 circ cents are the same as wheat cents or NO Morgans? Now i know you're just pulling my leg.
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
There are nowhere near that many selling on eBay.
Lower price = increased quantity demanded. And eBay isn't the only venue.
Not necessarily. Cart. horse. Supply glut lowers prices but it also saturates demand. This is not an in demand commodity. You can easily be fooled by a few ebay sales. They aren't always reproducible, especially at scale.
Bags of 5000 Lincoln Memorial cents are routinely sold on eBay at multiples of face value, and many of these bags contain coins that have been in circulation. So at this scale such sales are reproducible and routinely reproduced. And lowering prices will usually increase the quantity demanded, which is why merchants often cut prices on excess inventory in order to move it out of the store more quickly.
Lower prices can also attract new demand. I'm old enough to remember the sudden and unexpected release of multiple bags of scarce date New Orleans Morgan dollars in 1962. The publicity surrounding this event drove heightened collector interest in Morgans, and brought many new collectors into the fold.
You can't really be saying that you think 1983 circ cents are the same as wheat cents or NO Morgans? Now i know you're just pulling my leg.
Compare eBay prices for any circulated rolls of early Zincolns with common-date circulated rolls of wheats. For whatever reason, Zincolns bring significantly more.
And Morgans in general were far less popular pre-1962 than afterwards. The "O" releases changed all that, permanently.
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
I see records of sales of individual rolls- are people buying 20 roll lots?
Wheat cents are available and often sold on eBay in bag lots (5000 coins), along with bags of individual dates.
@Overdate said:
Bags of 5000 Lincoln Memorial cents are routinely sold on eBay at multiples of face value, and many of these bags contain coins that have been in circulation. So at this scale such sales are reproducible and routinely reproduced.
A quick search turns up sales of a couple of bags of copper (not zinc) Memorials for $100/bag and there's currently one for sale at that price. Buyers don't seem to be beating down the doors for these. And once again, these are not zinc Lincolns. How many of those are actually selling in bulk regularly?
edited to add... You can go to the bank and get rolls of pennies for face value. Why would people be interested in paying a premium for them?
55-gal drum? Good luck with that. BTW how many are sitting on hordes of pre 82' copper cents? Many thought the government would allow melting in the future. After all they allowed melting of dime, quarters halves and dollars.
@metalmeister said:
55-gal drum? Good luck with that. BTW how many are sitting on hordes of pre 82' copper cents? Many thought the government would allow melting in the future. After all they allowed melting of dime, quarters halves and dollars.
There shouldn't be any 1983s in hordes of pre-1982s
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
I see records of sales of individual rolls- are people buying 20 roll lots?
Wheat cents are available and often sold on eBay in bag lots (5000 coins), along with bags of individual dates.
Yes, they are. Are bags of zinc Lincolns?
Not very many, but the point of my reply above was that multi-roll lots of Lincolns are frequently bought and sold on eBay. If rolls of circulated early Zincolns are routinely bringing considerably more than rolls of circulated wheat cents, I would expect the same to hold true for 100-roll lots.
If you're searching a 55-gallon drum of Cents and the opening question is about "where to get a scale and what kind to get" you might be in over your head.
@Overdate said:
Bags of 5000 Lincoln Memorial cents are routinely sold on eBay at multiples of face value, and many of these bags contain coins that have been in circulation. So at this scale such sales are reproducible and routinely reproduced.
A quick search turns up sales of a couple of bags of copper (not zinc) Memorials for $100/bag and there's currently one for sale at that price. Buyers don't seem to be beating down the doors for these. And once again, these are not zinc Lincolns. How many of those are actually selling in bulk regularly?
edited to add... You can go to the bank and get rolls of pennies for face value. Why would people be interested in paying a premium for them?
Not many are selling in bulk regularly, but this probably reflects lack of supply rather than lack of demand. There are likely not very many 55-gallon drums of circulated early Zincolns sitting around waiting for a buyer. Since smaller quantities are available and do sell at 2x and 3x the price of circulated wheats, it is reasonable to infer that 100-roll lots would fetch a higher price also.
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
I see records of sales of individual rolls- are people buying 20 roll lots?
Wheat cents are available and often sold on eBay in bag lots (5000 coins), along with bags of individual dates.
Yes, they are. Are bags of zinc Lincolns?
Not very many, but the point of my reply above was that multi-roll lots of Lincolns are frequently bought and sold on eBay. If rolls of circulated early Zincolns are routinely bringing considerably more than rolls of circulated wheat cents, I would expect the same to hold true for 100-roll lots.
I'm sure you can also find rolls of wheat cents that sell for crazy money.
This one seller sold more rolls of $11 wheats than all the 1983 cent rolls sold.
@Overdate said:
Bags of 5000 Lincoln Memorial cents are routinely sold on eBay at multiples of face value, and many of these bags contain coins that have been in circulation. So at this scale such sales are reproducible and routinely reproduced.
A quick search turns up sales of a couple of bags of copper (not zinc) Memorials for $100/bag and there's currently one for sale at that price. Buyers don't seem to be beating down the doors for these. And once again, these are not zinc Lincolns. How many of those are actually selling in bulk regularly?
edited to add... You can go to the bank and get rolls of pennies for face value. Why would people be interested in paying a premium for them?
Not many are selling in bulk regularly, but this probably reflects lack of supply rather than lack of demand. There are likely not very many 55-gallon drums of circulated early Zincolns sitting around waiting for a buyer. Since smaller quantities are available and do sell at 2x and 3x the price of circulated wheats, it is reasonable to infer that 100-roll lots would fetch a higher price also.
Given that the price for UNC rolls of 1983 cents is $5 ($4 greysheet), I find it hard to believe that the price of circ rolls is really more than the cost of shipping.
@Overdate said:
Bags of 5000 Lincoln Memorial cents are routinely sold on eBay at multiples of face value, and many of these bags contain coins that have been in circulation. So at this scale such sales are reproducible and routinely reproduced.
A quick search turns up sales of a couple of bags of copper (not zinc) Memorials for $100/bag and there's currently one for sale at that price. Buyers don't seem to be beating down the doors for these. And once again, these are not zinc Lincolns. How many of those are actually selling in bulk regularly?
edited to add... You can go to the bank and get rolls of pennies for face value. Why would people be interested in paying a premium for them?
Not many are selling in bulk regularly, but this probably reflects lack of supply rather than lack of demand. There are likely not very many 55-gallon drums of circulated early Zincolns sitting around waiting for a buyer. Since smaller quantities are available and do sell at 2x and 3x the price of circulated wheats, it is reasonable to infer that 100-roll lots would fetch a higher price also.
Given that the price for UNC rolls of 1983 cents is $5 ($4 greysheet), I find it hard to believe that the price of circ rolls is really more than the cost of shipping.
The cheapest completed listing I see on eBay for an unc. roll is $10.19, and typical sales are in the $13 to $17 range. An OBW roll went for $24.95. Circulated rolls are only slightly cheaper.
@Custerlost said:
Copper error up to $25,000 at auction
Beats working at 7-11
With circulated 1983 cent rolls selling for $7.00 and up (including shipping) on eBay, if you have 300,000 of them in that 55-gallon drum, you might be able to net around $30,000 for the lot after expenses. That might be enough to purchase a copper one if you like.
300,000 is 6,000 rolls.
1 roll: shipping = $4.50, fees = $1.00, cost = 50 cents, for a total of $6.00. Sell for $7.00, net $1.00 x 6,000 rolls = $6,000 profit.
A search for "1983 lincoln roll circulated" returns a total of 39 sold in the past year. Say that search found only about 10% of the rolls sold, with the actual total sold being 300. You have a 20 year supply at that rate.
20 roll lot: shipping = $12, fees = $13 cost = $10, for a total of $35. Sell for $5.00 per roll (discounted), net $65 per lot x 300 lots = $19,500 profit.
I see records of sales of individual rolls- are people buying 20 roll lots?
Wheat cents are available and often sold on eBay in bag lots (5000 coins), along with bags of individual dates.
Yes, they are. Are bags of zinc Lincolns?
Not very many, but the point of my reply above was that multi-roll lots of Lincolns are frequently bought and sold on eBay. If rolls of circulated early Zincolns are routinely bringing considerably more than rolls of circulated wheat cents, I would expect the same to hold true for 100-roll lots.
I'm sure you can also find rolls of wheat cents that sell for crazy money.
This one seller sold more rolls of $11 wheats than all the 1983 cent rolls sold.
The cheapest completed true auction of a wheat roll I could find was just under $5.00, including shipping.
The cheapest completed true auction of a 1983 roll I could find was just under $10.00, including shipping.
Typical prices for both were 10 to 30 percent higher.
I didn't include the word "penny" or the singular "cent" in my search, so I missed those two. Probably most bidders did also, otherwise they likely wouldn't have gone so cheaply.
In any event, they are both outliers on the low side. Typically, circulated rolls of 1983 cents fetch more than 2x the price of circulated rolls of wheat cents.
@MasonG said:
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of $7/roll for the 83s.
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of only $5 and still showed an overall profit of nearly $20k. To market these coins efficiently and profitably, they need to be sold in multiple-roll lots rather than by the single roll.
@MasonG said:
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of $7/roll for the 83s.
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of only $5 and still showed an overall profit of nearly $20k. To market these coins efficiently and profitably, they need to be sold in multiple-roll lots rather than by the single roll.
And wait 20 years. There are very few sales of circ 83s
@JBK said:
I'm going to have to start saving 1983 cents! When I get a small hoard of them I'll sell them on ebay.
Right? Has the world gone mad? People willingly pay over 10 dollars for 50 (zinc) cents? What the heck is going on anymore
It's not just the 1983, all circulated Zincolns in the 1980's appear to be fetching a nice premium. They may not be all that common in circulation anymore, given normal attrition and the fact that they tend to corrode at an accelerated rate.
@MasonG said:
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of $7/roll for the 83s.
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of only $5 and still showed an overall profit of nearly $20k. To market these coins efficiently and profitably, they need to be sold in multiple-roll lots rather than by the single roll.
My scenario (occasional sales of individual rolls) is based on actual eBay sales.
@MasonG said:
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of $7/roll for the 83s.
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of only $5 and still showed an overall profit of nearly $20k. To market these coins efficiently and profitably, they need to be sold in multiple-roll lots rather than by the single roll.
My scenario (occasional sales of individual rolls) is based on actual eBay sales.
@MasonG said:
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of $7/roll for the 83s.
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of only $5 and still showed an overall profit of nearly $20k. To market these coins efficiently and profitably, they need to be sold in multiple-roll lots rather than by the single roll.
My scenario (occasional sales of individual rolls) is based on actual eBay sales.
Yours?
My scenario takes actual eBay sales as a starting point.
Fact: Whenever a roll of circulated 1983 cents is put up for auction, bidders are typically willing to pay more than $10 (including shipping) for each roll.
Mainstream economic theory: If the offering price is cut in half (as in my scenario), the quantity demanded will increase.
My prediction: If 20 rolls (1000 coins) are offered on eBay as a single lot with a starting price of $100 (that's $5 per roll), with free shipping, the lot will attract at least one bid and possibly more, for a net profit of at least $65 after shipping and fees.
Of course I can't test my prediction unless someone actually offers such a lot at auction, but my prediction is totally in line with mainstream economic theory.
@MasonG said:
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of $7/roll for the 83s.
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of only $5 and still showed an overall profit of nearly $20k. To market these coins efficiently and profitably, they need to be sold in multiple-roll lots rather than by the single roll.
And wait 20 years. There are very few sales of circ 83s
That's more a supply issue than a demand issue. Offering a larger supply and lowering the price by half should generate a big boost in sales. Merchants do it all the time to push excess inventory out of the store.
@MasonG said:
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of $7/roll for the 83s.
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of only $5 and still showed an overall profit of nearly $20k. To market these coins efficiently and profitably, they need to be sold in multiple-roll lots rather than by the single roll.
And wait 20 years. There are very few sales of circ 83s
That's more a supply issue than a demand issue. Offering a larger supply and lowering the price by half should generate a big boost in sales. Merchants do it all the time to push excess inventory out of the store.
No. It's not a supply issue. More rolls fall to sell than sell. You are fooling yourself by looking only at the handful of sales
You compared 1983 circ rolls with a few dozen sales in a year to NO Morgans and wheat cents that have thousands of sales. That is silly on the face of it.
@MasonG said:
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of $7/roll for the 83s.
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of only $5 and still showed an overall profit of nearly $20k. To market these coins efficiently and profitably, they need to be sold in multiple-roll lots rather than by the single roll.
And wait 20 years. There are very few sales of circ 83s
That's more a supply issue than a demand issue. Offering a larger supply and lowering the price by half should generate a big boost in sales. Merchants do it all the time to push excess inventory out of the store.
No. It's not a supply issue. More rolls fall to sell than sell. You are fooling yourself by looking only at the handful of sales
You compared 1983 circ rolls with a few dozen sales in a year to NO Morgans and wheat cents that have thousands of sales. That is silly on the face of it.
Your first link is the only one for a 1983 circulated Philadelphia roll. It was relisted as a Buy It Now at $4.39 plus $6.00 shipping (total $10.39) and sold at that price about a day later.
Although wheat cent rolls vastly outsell 1983 cent rolls, the ratio of completed sales to current listings is about the same. Granted, the overall demand for wheat cent rolls is higher, but the higher price for the 1983 roll indicates that the limited demand for this coin is offset by an even more limited supply.
The lowest priced 1983 roll I see currently offered is for an opening bid of $6.70 including shipping. My hypothetical scenario was to sell in a multi-roll lot at about a 25 percent discount from that price.
@Overdate said:
My scenario takes actual eBay sales as a starting point.
Fact: Whenever a roll of circulated 1983 cents is put up for auction, bidders are typically willing to pay more than $10 (including shipping) for each roll.
Mainstream economic theory: If the offering price is cut in half (as in my scenario), the quantity demanded will increase.
My prediction: If 20 rolls (1000 coins) are offered on eBay as a single lot with a starting price of $100 (that's $5 per roll), with free shipping, the lot will attract at least one bid and possibly more, for a net profit of at least $65 after shipping and fees.
Of course I can't test my prediction unless someone actually offers such a lot at auction, but my prediction is totally in line with mainstream economic theory.
About 25 years ago, I bought 3000+ rolls of wheat cents sorted by date and mint to sell on eBay. I listed individual rolls for sale and after a while, realized that at the rate they were selling, it would take 25 years to sell them all. So I offered them in groups of ten and twenty to sell them faster. Those listings never generated any sales- apparently, at that time, buyers wanted individual rolls and not bulk lots.
About 25 years ago, I bought 3000+ rolls of wheat cents sorted by date and mint to sell on eBay. I listed individual rolls for sale and after a while, realized that at the rate they were selling, it would take 25 years to sell them all. So I offered them in groups of ten and twenty to sell them faster. Those listings never generated any sales- apparently, at that time, buyers wanted individual rolls and not bulk lots.
Maybe 1983's are different.
Did you offer a significant discount from the single-roll price?
About 25 years ago, I bought 3000+ rolls of wheat cents sorted by date and mint to sell on eBay. I listed individual rolls for sale and after a while, realized that at the rate they were selling, it would take 25 years to sell them all. So I offered them in groups of ten and twenty to sell them faster. Those listings never generated any sales- apparently, at that time, buyers wanted individual rolls and not bulk lots.
Maybe 1983's are different.
Did you offer a significant discount from the single-roll price?
There was a discount, don't remember the exact amount.
About 25 years ago, I bought 3000+ rolls of wheat cents sorted by date and mint to sell on eBay. I listed individual rolls for sale and after a while, realized that at the rate they were selling, it would take 25 years to sell them all. So I offered them in groups of ten and twenty to sell them faster. Those listings never generated any sales- apparently, at that time, buyers wanted individual rolls and not bulk lots.
Maybe 1983's are different.
Did you offer a significant discount from the single-roll price?
A bag of wheats sells for $250. Someone spending $10 on a roll ($1000 for a bag) is taking a flier for fun. The bigger the lot, the more they want to pay the bulk price or even the wholesale price ($220 per bag).
The bulk price for a bag of zinc Lincolns is $50. The bigger the lot, the closer you need to be to the bulk price.
There is simply no numismatic premium for bags of circ zinc Lincolns.
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That's a good thought. Would the 2.5% copper caoting each zincoln set it off though?
There are nowhere near that many selling on eBay.
Ignore the naysayers, live your dream. Send the MS 70s in for grading while you search. Before and after pics, please.
Cheap fun, who cares what you would make at 7-11. 😆
Just know your probabilities going in and have realistic expectations.
Don't forget the big 1983 doubled die reverse. I found one roll searching once, and it was my best find:
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Roll searching gets tedious after a while (for me anyway).... So searching a 55 gallon drum of cents is not even feasible for me. Good luck... Cheers, RickO
I see records of sales of individual rolls- are people buying 20 roll lots?
MS70s out of a 55 gallon drum of coins hoarded out of circulation? Nice dream!
Searching (or selling) for potential copper is fine, but there is a much greater chance of finding a DDR.
You could set up various quantities to sell as an unsearched hoard on ebay. Let someone else take the gamble and do the work.
Fully agree, although there’s a possibility that the original hoarder checked for the DDR before tossing them in the drum.
I like the idea of selling them in “unsearched hoard” lots though—a photo of a huge drum of cents would be a great eBay listing photo.
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
Personally, if I had a 55 gallon drum of cents, I would rather use them whenever I had to pay the government or a business that I’m not fond of. Parking tickets, comcast bill, city furniture, the possibilities are endless. Can you imagine having a freight truck drop off 300,000 cents at the tax collectors office? That would give me much more pleasure than selling them would
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Lower price = increased quantity demanded. And eBay isn't the only venue.
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Not necessarily. Cart. horse. Supply glut lowers prices but it also saturates demand. This is not an in demand commodity. You can easily be fooled by a few ebay sales. They aren't always reproducible, especially at scale.
Wheat cents are available and often sold on eBay in bag lots (5000 coins), along with bags of individual dates.
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Bags of 5000 Lincoln Memorial cents are routinely sold on eBay at multiples of face value, and many of these bags contain coins that have been in circulation. So at this scale such sales are reproducible and routinely reproduced. And lowering prices will usually increase the quantity demanded, which is why merchants often cut prices on excess inventory in order to move it out of the store more quickly.
Lower prices can also attract new demand. I'm old enough to remember the sudden and unexpected release of multiple bags of scarce date New Orleans Morgan dollars in 1962. The publicity surrounding this event drove heightened collector interest in Morgans, and brought many new collectors into the fold.
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You can't really be saying that you think 1983 circ cents are the same as wheat cents or NO Morgans? Now i know you're just pulling my leg.
Compare eBay prices for any circulated rolls of early Zincolns with common-date circulated rolls of wheats. For whatever reason, Zincolns bring significantly more.
And Morgans in general were far less popular pre-1962 than afterwards. The "O" releases changed all that, permanently.
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Yes, they are. Are bags of zinc Lincolns?
A quick search turns up sales of a couple of bags of copper (not zinc) Memorials for $100/bag and there's currently one for sale at that price. Buyers don't seem to be beating down the doors for these. And once again, these are not zinc Lincolns. How many of those are actually selling in bulk regularly?
edited to add... You can go to the bank and get rolls of pennies for face value. Why would people be interested in paying a premium for them?
55-gal drum? Good luck with that. BTW how many are sitting on hordes of pre 82' copper cents? Many thought the government would allow melting in the future. After all they allowed melting of dime, quarters halves and dollars.
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There shouldn't be any 1983s in hordes of pre-1982s
Not very many, but the point of my reply above was that multi-roll lots of Lincolns are frequently bought and sold on eBay. If rolls of circulated early Zincolns are routinely bringing considerably more than rolls of circulated wheat cents, I would expect the same to hold true for 100-roll lots.
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If you're searching a 55-gallon drum of Cents and the opening question is about "where to get a scale and what kind to get" you might be in over your head.
Not many are selling in bulk regularly, but this probably reflects lack of supply rather than lack of demand. There are likely not very many 55-gallon drums of circulated early Zincolns sitting around waiting for a buyer. Since smaller quantities are available and do sell at 2x and 3x the price of circulated wheats, it is reasonable to infer that 100-roll lots would fetch a higher price also.
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I'm sure you can also find rolls of wheat cents that sell for crazy money.
This one seller sold more rolls of $11 wheats than all the 1983 cent rolls sold.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/154903269415?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Ca2fr5jHQuO&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=I7BWTu72SVS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
Given that the price for UNC rolls of 1983 cents is $5 ($4 greysheet), I find it hard to believe that the price of circ rolls is really more than the cost of shipping.
The cheapest completed listing I see on eBay for an unc. roll is $10.19, and typical sales are in the $13 to $17 range. An OBW roll went for $24.95. Circulated rolls are only slightly cheaper.
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The cheapest completed true auction of a wheat roll I could find was just under $5.00, including shipping.
The cheapest completed true auction of a 1983 roll I could find was just under $10.00, including shipping.
Typical prices for both were 10 to 30 percent higher.
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eBay auction, ended Dec. 7:
1983 Penny Roll (50ct)
Winning bid: US $1.25 [ 2 bids ]
Free shipping
https://www.ebay.com/itm/385266430910?
eBay auction, ended Nov. 9:
1982-D Zinc SD 1983-P Lincoln Memorial Penny Cent BU Unc. Roll Set of 100 Coins
Winning bid: US $0.95 [ 4 bids ]
Shipping: $4.95
https://www.ebay.com/itm/354375807128?
I didn't include the word "penny" or the singular "cent" in my search, so I missed those two. Probably most bidders did also, otherwise they likely wouldn't have gone so cheaply.
In any event, they are both outliers on the low side. Typically, circulated rolls of 1983 cents fetch more than 2x the price of circulated rolls of wheat cents.
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Neither did I.
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of $7/roll for the 83s.
I'm going to have to start saving 1983 cents! When I get a small hoard of them I'll sell them on ebay.
Right? Has the world gone mad? People willingly pay over 10 dollars for 50 (zinc) cents? What the heck is going on anymore
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I can only assume that get rich quick videos on social media are driving people to look for copper 1983 cents.
In my original scenario, I allowed for a sale price of only $5 and still showed an overall profit of nearly $20k. To market these coins efficiently and profitably, they need to be sold in multiple-roll lots rather than by the single roll.
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And wait 20 years. There are very few sales of circ 83s
It's not just the 1983, all circulated Zincolns in the 1980's appear to be fetching a nice premium. They may not be all that common in circulation anymore, given normal attrition and the fact that they tend to corrode at an accelerated rate.
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I wonder how many hours it would take one person to roll all of those cents?
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My scenario (occasional sales of individual rolls) is based on actual eBay sales.
Yours?
Incredible faith in an unloved coin series.
My scenario takes actual eBay sales as a starting point.
Fact: Whenever a roll of circulated 1983 cents is put up for auction, bidders are typically willing to pay more than $10 (including shipping) for each roll.
Mainstream economic theory: If the offering price is cut in half (as in my scenario), the quantity demanded will increase.
My prediction: If 20 rolls (1000 coins) are offered on eBay as a single lot with a starting price of $100 (that's $5 per roll), with free shipping, the lot will attract at least one bid and possibly more, for a net profit of at least $65 after shipping and fees.
Of course I can't test my prediction unless someone actually offers such a lot at auction, but my prediction is totally in line with mainstream economic theory.
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That's more a supply issue than a demand issue. Offering a larger supply and lowering the price by half should generate a big boost in sales. Merchants do it all the time to push excess inventory out of the store.
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No. It's not a supply issue. More rolls fall to sell than sell. You are fooling yourself by looking only at the handful of sales
https://www.ebay.com/itm/134383141190?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=1PHu7fAuTTu&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=I7BWTu72SVS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
https://www.ebay.com/itm/134383124215?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=1PHu7fAuTTu&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=I7BWTu72SVS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
https://www.ebay.com/itm/134381802497?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=1PHu7fAuTTu&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=I7BWTu72SVS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
And others if you care to search.
This is simply NOT a high demand item even at numbers below $10.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/364079277277?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=-AHsNLLxQwe&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=I7BWTu72SVS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
You compared 1983 circ rolls with a few dozen sales in a year to NO Morgans and wheat cents that have thousands of sales. That is silly on the face of it.
We’ll see ’em when he posts the pics of a fifty-five gallon drum of 1983 cents; cream rises.
Your first link is the only one for a 1983 circulated Philadelphia roll. It was relisted as a Buy It Now at $4.39 plus $6.00 shipping (total $10.39) and sold at that price about a day later.
Although wheat cent rolls vastly outsell 1983 cent rolls, the ratio of completed sales to current listings is about the same. Granted, the overall demand for wheat cent rolls is higher, but the higher price for the 1983 roll indicates that the limited demand for this coin is offset by an even more limited supply.
The lowest priced 1983 roll I see currently offered is for an opening bid of $6.70 including shipping. My hypothetical scenario was to sell in a multi-roll lot at about a 25 percent discount from that price.
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Cream rises... and the heavier copper should settle to the bottom. Problem solved.
😉
About 25 years ago, I bought 3000+ rolls of wheat cents sorted by date and mint to sell on eBay. I listed individual rolls for sale and after a while, realized that at the rate they were selling, it would take 25 years to sell them all. So I offered them in groups of ten and twenty to sell them faster. Those listings never generated any sales- apparently, at that time, buyers wanted individual rolls and not bulk lots.
Maybe 1983's are different.
Did you offer a significant discount from the single-roll price?
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
There was a discount, don't remember the exact amount.
A bag of wheats sells for $250. Someone spending $10 on a roll ($1000 for a bag) is taking a flier for fun. The bigger the lot, the more they want to pay the bulk price or even the wholesale price ($220 per bag).
The bulk price for a bag of zinc Lincolns is $50. The bigger the lot, the closer you need to be to the bulk price.
There is simply no numismatic premium for bags of circ zinc Lincolns.