Unsearched rolls on eBay...the rest of the story

[JJM]

I live in a rural area, I have ads up on a distant C.L. or two from time to time wanting to buy silver and copper cents, get a couple of bites a month but nothing usually comes out of it.

I had a guy call the other day wanting to sell me his entire coin collection. He said he had at least 10,000 wheats, 5,000 Indians, and lots of books from the 19th and 20th century. He was also a type collector, and needed to raise some money for a business, and the bank wasn't playing ball. He wanted to sell everything at once, and not to the "crooks" at any of the quasi-local coin shops.

I typed his phone number into google a few days later before giving him a call back. Turns out he's been selling the heck out of "unsearched rolls" on eBay - just an insane amount of them. One of things I asked him when he first called was how searched the bags were - he said they were searched. I know this doesn't really surprise anyone, but it's nice to "get the goods" on one of these guys.

Ethics, you either have them or you don't.

He was supposed to call back last night but didn't. I'll put a link up to his eBay presence after a few days go by, folks might want to have a little fun with him. I'll give him a few more days in case something comes of the deal with me, although that seems unlikely at this point given what I now know.

[NDFarmer]

I always get a kick out of the guys that are selling unsearched bags of wheats on feebay but yet if you look at their feedback they have all the better dates carded up and sold individually. But yet people still pay big money for their unsearched bags just because they put "unsearched" in the title and description.

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

You know they didn't get those good coins they carded up from searching the bags.. It is certainly possible that they have both "unsearched" bags and nice better date carded coins.

[Derek.Sheriff]

I've accumulated a few pounds of wheat pennies just by hand searching through the coppers my new Ryedale has sorted in the last few months. At my present rate, I expect to have somewhere between 7-10 pounds of wheat pennies before the end of the year.

I'd really like to hang on to these wheat pennies and pass them on to my grand kids someday. But if times get tough, work slows down, etc. what is the best way for me to sell my wheat pennies in order to maximize my return? Should I look for key dates and sell them one by one on eBay?

Thanks,
Derek

[Copper Catcher]

Like many folks I enjoy having a buying and gathering few bags of wheats here and there. All the ones I get in sorting I glance at but toss in the bag. I'm looking one day to find a 1955 double die or a 1909 S VDB or 1922 plain. Not really focusing on much else. All the teens, steel pennies, S mint marks and even Indians are all in the mix. So at some point someone is going to have lots of fun looking back through my stash...

The real question is how much is enough?

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

The real question is how much is enough?

"Just a little bit more."

[JJM]

I offered him $7.5K yesterday for $500 face in wheats and $250 face in junk silver, he didn't bite. Wasn't really interested in the wheats, buying them more as a favor to get at the silver, but no such luck. Local coin dealer got the silver today, so he's stuck holding the bag(s) on the wheats. Tough environment to be selling wheats currently, AEB our classifieds price war!