"Unsearched by us", "real canvas with sewn or lead sealed opening"....

DesertRat

.... are just some of the many descriptors I see on ads in Coin World for bags of wheat cents, nickels, quarters etc... Do or have any of you purchased these? I see so many bags and rolls of bulk coins for sale in here and find it hard to believe that if I bought a bag of 5000 wheat cents, or rolls of war-era Jeffs, there would be anything more than common circulated junk in it. Am I totally wrong here?

kryptonitecomics

No your not wrong..............not worth the money and certainly searched in my opinion.

billboat

After looking at a bazillion Ebay auctions over the years I am totally convinced that nothing has ever been searched or opened, that every thing is original and chances are "gold will be found"!!! You can take that to the bank--oops!, I mean the seller can take your money to the bank.

ar18

3 years ago my girlfriend bought me a bag of 5000 wheaties for my b-day, did find 1 14-d, 2 22-d, 7 31-d, and a ton of other dates including a 10-s in AU. Only bag I ever got though and it was 3 years ago.

Jeff

lordmarcovan

You never can tell.

99.5% of the time, I would imagine you'd get nothing but circ commons. But you never know. I've cherrypicked some low-grade semi-key coins out of bulk Wheat mixtures before. No '14-D's or anything like that, but stuff like the 23-S or 11-D.

I would tend to believe somebody who said "unsearched by us" before I would trust somebody who simply said "unsearched".

Once in a while, and Indian cent or two will tiptoe in to Wheat bags.

If the price is right based for a bag of all common stuff, then anything better than the norm that comes out of there is gravy. But no way would I ever pay any premium over the common price for a lot just because it was "unsearched" or "sealed".

Coinhusker1

What?? You think those unopened proof sets in the crisp Vernon Coin envelopes have been searched?? There are no "DCAM Frankins Worth $4,500 in MS-68??" Ye of little hope!!! It's just a coincidence that 80% of the 55-64 proof sets for sale on Ebay are "unopened"!!!

DesertRat

I'm looking at full page ads in Coin World and there are $50.00 face value bags selling for $199.00. What would be the "common price" Lordmarcovan? I'm just thinking my kids and I really enjoyed looking through the bottle of lincolns I had in the garage but I don't want to spend $200 for $50 in pocket change.

Edited to add: I have come to the conclusion that i will not buy from E-bay until I have a far far better grasp of what is a good buy and what is not. and even then I probably wouldn't buy off E-bay.

ar18

rat,

you have to remember that you can always dump wheats for 2-3 cents each, so they will never be 50 bucks for 200, my dealer down here will pay 3 cents each, so if you can pull a few nicer coins out and enjoy going through them why not. Me and my father did this when I was young and that is how I got into coin collecting. And it is FUN. I say go for it.


Jeff

lordmarcovan

Four cents a coin ain't awful. You're bound to get at least a little bit of older or more interesting stuff in 5,000 pieces. (Ahh... but what is the shipping fee ?)

DesertRat

Four cents a coin ain't awful. You're bound to get at least a little bit of older or more interesting stuff in 5,000 pieces. (Ahh... but what is the shipping fee ?)

Hehehe...at the bottom of their ad it says +$4.95 S&H. But they have a lot more coins than just the wheaties listed so I'm sure it would be significantly more for 5k in cents.

Anyone know a So. Calif. dealer who might have bags like this?

sliderider

Almost as good as the crusty roman coin ads saying that you could find gold coins in their lots.

Pennycase

I don't think any bag of wheaties is going to be entirely unsearched....But, there are those who do search through their wheaties before they bag them up, just to make sure the person receiving gets his money worth plus some. I have just finished putting together some 1400 coins for a person ....While looking through to sort out too many 50's in one roll, I've put about 4 1909 VDB's, countless steel cents, and I have mixed silver in with my wheaties, which might explain why this person will find barber dimes in the rolls, even though I try to put them in a seperate bag to send instead of being in a roll. The one thing that tickled me to death, was a 1932 D that is at least ms-60 RD that I saw, and yes, did place into a 2x2 to send along with the wheaties, which is only fair. If you can find a person who is honest, and wont take out things when they put them in rolls, then you get a good deal, but, that's almost a mission impossible.

dorkkarl

nothing is more "sight-unseen" then buying barf-bags full of junk coins. so, i definitely do not participate.

K S

coppercoins

Most of them are unsearched as far as I'm concerned. In one bag of circ wheats I found over 500 die varieties to include two 1936 DDOs, 1944 D/S #2, two 1946S/D #1, 1951D/S #1, 1952D RPM#15, 1956D RPM#8, and a 1956D RPM#16. Cumulative value of these in EF-AU condition was enough to make up for the entire bag - twice.

If you know what to look for and look for it you will be rewarded far more than not. If you're buying these bags just looking for the 1909S VDB, 1914D, 1911S, etc...I hve a bridge to sell ya. These were weeded out of the coins before they ever went into bags - back when one could still find them occasionally in change.

So...it depends on what you call "unsearched." Most of them are in my eyes.