Awesome finds in a 1954 original UNC Lincoln Wheat Roll

BigBen

I bought a bunch of original 50s uncirculated wheat penny rolls a couple of days ago and came across one roll that was 99% MS-65 and 66 Reds! Only 1 was a 63, and the rest are are all 65, 65PQ, and 66s, one or two even look like possible 67s! I only paid $15 for the roll so I'm MUCHO HAPPY I don't have a camera that can take close shots but I've posted some that give some sense of how they look. I also pulled a few beautiful 66 Reds out of a 1955 roll as well. I took the 55s to a very critical dealer who is a PCGS submission center and he actually ogled the 1955s and said they were easy 66s, so I'm really happy that I was able to grab these Lincoln rolls for $15 a piece! I still have 2 rolls each of 1953, 56, and 57, and 1 more roll of 55. I also bought 1951-D and 1952-D, which yielded several gems. I paid $19 a roll for these. I have a feeling Lincoln Wheats are going to get a price boost in the 2007 Red Book which will make red UNC wheats more sought after (though I may be wrong)

Cheers!

BigBen

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

BigBen

Rats, I can't upload the pics because of the insane 40k limit on size. Is there a way around this?

ddbird

Nice score...

dizzyfoxx

Upload them to this image hosting site and then you can insert them into your thread.

ddbird

Them are some red wheaties...

BigBen

What's amazing is that all the rolls that I've bought in this batch all look like this excepting degrees of grades, grease from the dies, etc. I bought these from a dealer in a more affluent area of my county who had them sitting in vault for over 20 years. He got them from a older guy who put them in the old style plastic tubes back in the 50s and taped them shut with scotch tape. I took them out and put them all directly into plastic lined 2x2s to minimize exposure to the air. For the money I paid I couldn't be happier. With the exception of Ebay and mail order, it is getting hard to find bright red and clean unc wheats on a local level, except an occasional slab queen at full market price, unless you wait for a coin show.

1954-Ps are tough to find in higher grades, so I got really lucky with this particular roll.

cladking

Cool.

These were probably cherry picked from a bag by the original owner. Indeed, sometimes
people would cherry pick multiple bags and set aside nice coins.

You can sometimes find groups of mint or proof sets like this also. Many dealers barely even
look at the purchases so will put stacks of gems out in their display cases.

BigBen

Hey cladking, I think you're right. I just made another post with a better pic arrangement, and in the post I suspected that I found "gem rolls" and at this point feel almost beyond a doubt that that's what these are. I'm totally psyched because I paid standard unsearched roll prices (12, 15, and 19 dollars per roll with the higher price being for the early 50s rolls, etc.).

At first I thought I was crazy because everyone I'd pull out would be 64 to 66, with some possible 67s, and I began to wonder why MS-66 1953 and 1954 "P" Wheats were so expensive lol. Now that I 've figured this out I'm now hoping for that elusive MS-67 in a 50s "P" Wheat. Some of these are just blazing bright with clean surfaces, so I'm curious if any make 67. Maybe I'll scan some and ask some opinions here.

Cheers,

BigBen

Coppernicus

If you get a 66 or two on the 54-Ps, that would be a great score - and very difficult at PCGS these days.

Mike

WaterSport

I hope they ALL grade MS 66, so the pop will drop and I can afford a an upgrade of my 65!

WS

BigBen

I just took a small handful of 51-D, 52-D, 53, 54, and 55's that were not the best of the bunch to an NGC submission center dealer and got his opinion. The ones I thought were 65's he agreed and in some coins said 66. The ones I thought were 66 he said "wow, nice lincolns!". When I told him I had many more like these he seemed rather suprised. One of the things I have found is that one of the rolls usually has a number of blazing shiny wheats with 1 to 5 spots on them, which really bummed me out until I figured out how to remove them without damaging the coin. Most of these cleaned up so well that I might have just an unbelievable amount of 50s gems that would make 66 on PCGS or NGC. The person who loaded the rolls these came out of years ago must have had a great eye and put in a alot of work!

I just went through two 1957 "P" rolls last night and found about 60% 66 Reds, some maybe 67 because they are almost perfect, including the lettering on the reverse and the fields. I sill have alot to remove the spots off of, because over 50% had some minor spotting on them. I still have to go through 1950, 51, 56, 57-D, 58, 58-D rolls! Man this is a lot of work (but fun I might add)

Coinhusker1

Those look like beauties. Let us know how they grade when you get them back!

BigBen

I'll definitely let everyone know how the grade game plays out. Because of the high cost of submission, I'm going to limit sending in coins that a PCGS submission center feels wouldn't grade at least 66 in a year where a 66 is worth over $100 (53 & 54) or anything that the PCGS dealer feels would hit 67 unless PCGS is being purposeful against giving ANYTHING 67.

Does anybody here have any recent experience with "P" mint 50s wheats getting MS-67 at PCGS or NGC?

RpmHunter

Congrats on the nice coins. I can tell you I have looked at probably 100 B.U. 54-P rolls and the ones you have shown look to be very nice. You mention that you removed some spotting. I am curious, how did you clean them?

bushmaster8

Yeah, how are you getting the spots off??

BigBen

Hi RpmHunter,

Those 54 P's came out of just 3 rolls! I went to a local dealer who had almost forgotten about these rolls in his vault. The rolls he pulled out were actually old plastic tubes that look considerably old, as even the tape seemed like it was falling part. The funny thing was that the coins on each end looked 66 red, so I asked if we could look beyond the first coin before I bought them. When I looked at them it looked like a sea of bright "copper-gold" and I was amazed and proceeded to buy every roll he had. When I got home and starting going through them I started to wonder why everyone said 50's "P" wheats are so hard to find in 65 Red and above, because I was literally going through rolls of ALL 64, 65, 66, and possibly 67 bright red "P" wheats (see rough pictures I've attached- though not close, note the luster and clean fields).

So now I'm going crazy trying to organize these things because I have so many! So far, about 50% of the coins have been 64s, 65s, red-brown, mottled toning, a few have machine marks, some have a "mint wash" impairment (several otherwise gorgeous coins have this) and some are spotted beyond repair. The other 50% are 65, 66, and possibly 67 red gems! I'm going to try "MS70" for the coins with the "mint washed" appearance, because if I can get the rinse off safely they should grade 66.

As for the question of cleaning spots, I figured out a careful way to use Acetone and a wooden toothpick to gently scrape away the offending spot without harming the coin itself. On most wheats I can remove the area to the point where all you see is lighter area of toning under magnification that restores them almost perfectly. I plan to have these looked at by the PCGS dealer before submission, but if he ok's them I'll let folks here know and give more detail about how I cleaned the spots.