BU Roll Market Perking Up.
cladking
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I'm seeing a lot of strength in modern BU rolls the last few weeks. I've been seeing a ballooning number of BU rolls for sale at retail. The retail pricing is staggering. Not so much that they are all high (average only a little less than 175% bid) but that some of the rolls are at extreme prices. Now this is translating to much higher bid prices. Buyers are picky and don't want spotted coins but they seem to have an almost insatiable demand unless you want to sell large quantities. This is a funny market because it's so thin but also because there are legacy "large quantities" and most of these are too poor of condition for buyers. Even mint sets from which most of these rolls are assembled also too poor quality because of easily removable "tarnish". These sets have suffered staggering attrition for many years and now many dates have to be destroyed because the coins in them get harder to restore every day until they are cut up and the contaminants removed.
It seems like people started looking at the penny and found modern rolls. Everyone thinks modern penny rolls are oh so common but a few of these are seeing demand as well. Wheat cent (BU) rolls have soared to $15 even for the most common dates. I wonder how many 1958-D's I've spent over the years. I suspect the difficult in actually laying hands on coins like a nice BU '71 is causing more looking at the other denominations which have become far more elusive over the years as no one watched and the coins corroded and wore. The nickel and dime markets are moving and staying ahead of the pennies for right now. Half dollars are strong and have been for a few years now. I'd call the dollars the sleeper. You simply can't obtain nice collectible versions of some of the Ikes except with luck or at retail. The '71 and '72 don't even exist in the sets and the '75 never has a nice Philly. You can clean many of them but few will grade better than MS-63. With quantity and good luck you can still find MS-65's
The pennies are likely to surprise even me. It's hard to know how many were saved each year once that number crossed two or million because it was just "common". But the ones that corrode affect large percentages of some of these dates but even that percentage might vary because some of the accumulations were vast. No matter how it plays out there are going to be some highly elusive dates and a few that exist in enormous quantity. We can't know what survived until this market matures.
This is pretty much the final road sign I've been watching for all these years. From here it's all terra incognita. A huge percentage of the surviving moderns are in the hands of the general public. They will not come to market easily. Dealers don't own these coins because they all gravitated to the public. They were consumed. I should hardly be surprised if the BU rolls don't mostly end up outside the mainstream hobby.
I never imagined this could all be so very anti-climactic. I hardly care myself since most of mine were sold long ago. 23 years ago when I got here I never imagined that many of the BU's would be tough but those rolls I had few of and that were often spotted are tough even in BU now.
Comments
But is anything actually selling at those prices?
Here we go again.
Yeah, This is the point. Wholesale is leapfrogging the price guides because the guides are anachronisms that never reflected a real market. "Common" Jefferson rolls are wholesaling at several times bid. The rolls are out there. Nothing is rare but getting them to market now that the demand is in the hundreds and the supplies are no longer in the millions will prove difficult.
Most chBU moderns are a tiny fraction as common as generally believed. There are a few extremely common coins which are mostly cents and nickels. Still everything is being "consumed" at a remarkable rate but coins sold as "BU" are more likely to be preserved going forward. This market is tiny but it is the seed of future supply. Demand will separate the wheat from the chaff,
Do you see a difference in price or rarity between generic BU rolls, original BU rolls, and original unopened bank wrapped rolls? I’ve long felt it was hard to find original or unopened 1965-1995 rolls of anything except cents. I can’t remember the last time I saw an original bank wrapped Ike roll. I agree about the surprising rarity of nice modern coins and rolls, but I don’t know if there are hidden pallets out there or the supply really is really starting to slowly taper. Coins from the 1970s are around 50 years old by now.
The cents are.
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This is very complex and my knowledge is more limited. Original BU rolls can be virtually impossible to find but many of them are so ugly nobody wants them. Conversely though the services tend to grade the clean ones very high. Even poorly made coins from worn dies start looking pretty good when they are very scarce and very clean. Believe it or not I went through most of my original rolls a few years back saving a few nice Gems and varieties as well as some examples of unusual die conditions and just spent the rest. I have seen a few original rolls bring premiums recently but the problem is a lot of the coins are not wanted even as "chBU". I saved a few of the more unusual rolls. I found some pretty neat stuff in the ones I did destroy so they weren't a waste by far. Nice looking moderns that obviously weren't from mint sets will get a lot of attention some day.
Individuals set aside as much as a pallet of a few of the cents but the clads were very scarce even as bags within a few years of issue. Other than some individual rolls of '69 quarters I believe as few as five bags of these were set aside and many of them had their balances returned to the bank when they couldn't be sold. There were just a few sellers in the coin papers and these sold very poorly. Julian Jarvis told me in 1980 that he doubted he could put a roll set of quarters together without calling in some favors. These coins are far harder to find today and his customers widely dispersed with nothing in common except they found his classified ads. He didn't even sell 200 rolls if I understood him correctly. He offered these for sale as late as 1972 if I recall. I've never seen one he sold to my knowledge. He was able to sell the 1970 to date quarters until at least 1982. I've talked to a couple other of the sellers as well including Arlen Kramer.
I will mention one thing though. I talked to a lot of dealers and quite a few of them were aware people weren't saving any of the coins. Even though none admitted it I have no doubt some dealers set these aside. I imagine most were just spent back in the '80's, '90's, and '00's as their coins and businesses were sold on the market. Not many people wanted to hold onto clads rolls with no premiums and no buyers. Few dealers from that era are left. With many people believing the coins were scarce you have to believe at least a few are in hiding but it can't be a lot or you'd see them around. The only coins seen in quantity are the pennies and some of the nickels. There aren't any real exceptions though there was an east coast vending magnate who had a bag set. I believe these coins are the basis for one of the BU roll sellers today. But even that seller doesn't have every date. Every 1969 roll I've seen since 1969 came from mint sets.
I talk to a lot of collectors too and used to belong to all the clubs. Mostly they say the same things but some people have a lot easier time finding rolls than I do. (They probably bid more) back in the '80's there were a lot of Ike rolls and you heard of bags. It was the same with half dollars. I don't l know why people are buying rolls today. With search engines I kindda figure it's people looking for unusual items for all sorts of collections like someone who wants a roll of dimes from the year "Jaws" was released as part of his movie collection or perhaps a birth year set. People are collecting very esoteric items now days.