Cherrypicking wheaties,Do you have any tips?

rikker

I just got a huge group of wheat cents, and my eyes are going goofy already. Do you have any tips to help speed up the searching process? I have been fiirst splitting them up according to year. Is there a certain grade I should not even bother looking at? About 80% of these are pretty worn. I was thinking if when i am looking at the reverse, if the wheat ears aren't defined don't even bother looking at them. Is this a bad idea? Any tips on how you do it would be appreciated. Some of them have black crud in between the letters , any way to get rid of that? Thanks

FC57Coins

No - that's why at my age I've kept to collecting big clunky coins

MrKelso

Do you have any tips to help speed up the searching process?

Yes, find a 7 year old with sharp eyes to help you. Thats what i do.

clw54

I used to be the one with sharp eyes. Now I have trouble making out the date and I don't have any kids, so I use a loupe.

becker

My first thought would be to ask where you got them.
Ideally it would be directly from the heirs of a penny candy store owner who did business in San Francisco until 1913 and then visited the Denver mint in 1914 before retiring.
We all can dream!
My experience has been that in recent times one of the most over searched groups of coins has been unsearched lots of wheat cents.
When was the last time anyone offered an unsearched bag of Buffalo nickels?

What I like most about your post is that it proves you are having fun. You may find a treasure or you may not. The fun is in the hunt!

Thanks for posting this thread.

Best,
Tom

coppercoins

Rikker....right down my alley, I'll do what I can for ya.

1. sorting - I found a method of sorting bulk cents that works better and faster than the good ole fashioned method where you pull them apart by decade, then split them by individual year. Here goes...

Go find a dozen or so of those disposable tubs you can buy from the store that are made to temporarily store food in. Mark each of ten with a digit, 0-9. Split the coins by LAST digit into the tubs. After you do that, then sort each of them into decades as you get to them. This makes the whole process faster somehow. If you can't get it all done in one day, you can put the lids on the tubs and store them on a shelf until you get back to them.

2. searching - I would suggest not bothering with coins grading lower than VF unless they are a key date. If it's die varieties you are hunting for, very few people bother with them below VF. Your idea of saving them only if the wheats are defined is a good one. You can do that at any stage of the sorting process to save some time and energy.

As for exactly how you go about looking for the die varieties and what to look for, that's an entire book unto itself. If you are only looking for money coins, the list is much simpler...look through or save off 1909P VDB, 1917P, 1925S, 1927D, 1936P, 1941P, 1942P, 1942S, 1943D, 1944D, 1946S, 1951D, 1952D, and 1956D. Keep an eye out for the 1 in a billion chance you have a 1955 DDO as well. These dates encompass 90% of the money die varieties in Lincoln cents. Some of the coins I would be directing you to in these dates are listed in the Red Book, others are not. Ask after you get them sorted out, and I can tell you one by one with images what to be looking for.

If, by chance, you are interested in all die varieties, do not discount any date. There are known examples of doubled dies and mint mark varieties in just about every date and mint, but the process of finding them is painstaking if you don't have a passion for it as I do.

3. getting the gunk out - There's a solution called "Goo Gone" that is wonderful for cleaning the black gunk from around devices on circulated copper. You can get it at any Wal-Mart, that's where I get mine. You will need a soft bristle toothbrush as well. Goo Gone comes in a squirt bottle and smells of oranges. It's an orange oil extract and immediately lifts residue off of copper without changing the color of the coin. I would NOT recommend it for BU or partially red coins - I'm afraid it could change or tone the surface of the red. When you find a coin you think could have something on it, you squirt some Goo Gone on the coin and very lightly brush the coin, then let the Goo Gone evaporate off the coin. Use some acetone to remove the residue of the Goo Gone (I have never let a coin "remain" with the Goo Gone, but it may not be necessary to clean it off).

This should get you off to a good start. There's not much else to it, the remainder of what you would want to know involves proper identification of what you find, and we can deal with that after you find it.