UPDATED WITH FINDS; Could these wheat penny rolls be the real "unsearched rolls?"

AlinMN

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I recently ran accross an auction of unclaimed safe deposit boxes and one lot in particular interested me, it contained 55 rolls of so called "not searched" wheat pennies and one roll of nickels and some loose wheats and indian heads. Now I usually don't believe the claim of being unsearched but this is a state treasury auction and they have no reason to not tell the truth. This is what the website says about the sale:

"Each year the State Treasurer's Office receives the contents of safe deposit boxes from banks and other financial institutions that have been abandoned for at least five years.
The names of the contents’ owners are published in local newspapers and entered into the State's Unclaimed Property online database. The contents are then stored in the state's vault for at least three more years. If the owner or their heirs do not come forward to claim the contents, the Treasurer's Office holds an auction of the contents."


They also go on to say that the proceeds from the auction go into an account where it is held for the owner or rightful heirs.

So my treasure hunting nature :pirate::shemademe:got the best of me and I bid on and won the lot. It is described as containing the following;

55 rolls of wheat pennies (not searched)

1 roll of nickels

17 Indian head pennies 1887-1907

223 wheat penny

28 wheat pennies


Also there was this picture of the lot:
Contents of safe deposit box.jpg

Now I'm not going to say what I had to pay for the lot because if it turns out to be all common dates, then I paid too much!:lol: But you never know..:confused:.it was shipped today and I should get it by wednesday. I'll let you know how it turns out.

They came, but I have been harvesting soybeans and trying to finish today before the rain, so I'll post more tonight (friday) when I get a chance to finish going through them. Here is a picture of them when I took them out of the box. Many of the rolls are falling apart, the paper in the rolls seems to be very old and the tape is really dried out, like it was put on the rolls years ago.

IMG_6969.jpg

Most of the rolls looked the same and searching through them I found what many people suspected, these were not totally unsearched rolls. Now they were unsearched by the sellers because of the very old dried out tape on them but someone put all 40's and 50's wheats with one or two pre 40 wheats in each roll. They were way to similar to not be staged by someone, probably a dealer who sold them to the person who put them in the safety deposit box. Another reason I know that they were staged is that there were 7 uncirculated 1955-S what are the chances of that. Also a lot of 1926 and 1919 and very few in the 30's. I did find a 1909 but not a VDB and several other years in the teens.
IMG_7001.jpg

However......
There were three rolls that were different from the rest as they had been written on, here is a picture:
IMG_6972.jpg

This is what I found in the roll of nickels, 40 silver war nickels:
IMG_7008.jpg

The roll that said 1943 zinc coated turned out to be a very nice roll of 1943 pennies:
IMG_7000.jpg

Then there was the roll that said Indian heads, and there were 50 indian heads in it, in addition to the 17 indian heads they listed for a total of 67 indian heads.
IMG_7005.jpg

Also in the roll of indian heads there were these three, however the 1909's did not have an S on the back.:no:
IMG_7007.jpg\

So after the war nickels and indians I got my money's worth, if not for them I would have paid too much. Still it was a fun hunt.:yes:
 
I'd wager any keepers will be in that plastic bag. Why put something bulk and not valuable in a safety deposit box?
 
I'd wager any keepers will be in that plastic bag. Why put something bulk and not valuable in a safety deposit box?

When I enlarge the picture it looks like most of the rolls have been taped up to keep the coins from falling out. I wonder if when they took them out of the safe deposit box some of the rolls broke open and they placed those coins in the plastic bags and taped up the rest of the rolls. The plastic bags look to be fairly new. I am hoping that the reason the rolls are taped is that they were put away 50 or more years ago.:lol:
 
Unsearched? so how do they know whats there?
I don't think scotch tape was available 50 years ago.

I don't think the tape was put on 50 years ago, but put on recently so that they could handle the rolls without all the coins falling out. As far as knowing what is in the rolls they probably looked at the coins on the ends to see what was in the rolls, but didn't search through the coins looking for better more valuable dates. At least that is what I am hoping.:yes:
And also scotch tape was invented in 1930.
 
Most of those rolls look like they were rolled by hand and few people I know could resist sneaking a peek at the dates. Hope I'm wrong. Let us know how it goes.....

Dusty
 
Someone put them in the rolls. I doubt that they are unsearched. But, I am a skeptic, so maybe I am wrong. I don't ever trust someone who says they are "unsearched" rolls.


Why would they even use the word unsearched if they were not searched? Why not just say "Rolls of wheat pennies?" if they are merely unclaimed property?

The wording "unsearched" tells me that someone with knowledge did search them or they wouldn't even know the lingo "unsearched rolls."

My .02:D Good luck bud!
 
Someone put them in the rolls. I doubt that they are unsearched. But, I am a skeptic, so maybe I am wrong. I don't ever trust someone who says they are "unsearched" rolls.


Why would they even use the word unsearched if they were not searched? Why not just say "Rolls of wheat pennies?" if they are merely unclaimed property?

The wording "unsearched" tells me that someone with knowledge did search them or they wouldn't even know the lingo "unsearched rolls."

My .02:D Good luck bud!

I hope they are unsearched too but I was 100% thinking the same thing as Ozarks...
 
Yep. Who wouldn't take a little of their free time to search through old coins with sky high potential value? That's retarded. Good luck with those 'unsearched' rolls. :lol: I hope us nay sayers are dead wrong for your sake.
 
one caveat, unsearched perhaps, by the auction folks, trustees or whatever you wish to call them. just hope that the original owners were too stupid to know about a 1914d or 1922 plain. no such animal as unsearched rolls of wheats. hopefully, they were stupid and just hoarded without caring about dates. 5 cents a coin would be an ok deal simply because they are coppers. and there should be some decent coins in the mix. I would pay $2.50 a roll for wheats anytime. But not higher. hoping you get a 1914d and a 1909s vdb. You will have a blast going thru them, tho.
 
Yep. Who wouldn't take a little of their free time to search through old coins with sky high potential value? That's retarded. Good luck with those 'unsearched' rolls. :lol: I hope us nay sayers are dead wrong for your sake.

That's what is so great about this type of auction. The state has no financial incentive to get the best price for each item. They must sell this stuff since it costs too much to continue to store it, so they just make a listing of what is in each box and auction it off and put the proceeds into an account for unclaimed property, where it sits until it is claimed by heirs. When the money is in an account it doesn't cost the state anything to store.

The state can't afford to pay someone to search through all these rolls just so they can get more money for the auction since they don't benefit from it anyway.

Now the person who put the rolls in the safety deposit box might have known what was in them, hopefully he knew that there were some good ones in the rolls and that is why they were in the safe deposit box,:lol: but you would be surprised how many people have valuable coins and don't know what they are worth, or how to find out. On the other hand they might all be common dates that the person thought someday they would be worth alot.:confused:
 
My grandparents used to buy coin rolls from the bank and put them away. They didn't know or care about key dates. Just that they were buying silver half dollars, wheat pennies, etc. My grandmother continued getting $20.00 in $2.00 bills, once a month, up until she retired. She just collected them for us grand kids. Here's hoping you find something worth the money you paid and more.. GL & HH
 
That's what is so great about this type of auction. The state has no financial incentive to get the best price for each item. They must sell this stuff since it costs too much to continue to store it, so they just make a listing of what is in each box and auction it off and put the proceeds into an account for unclaimed property, where it sits until it is claimed by heirs. When the money is in an account it doesn't cost the state anything to store.

The state can't afford to pay someone to search through all these rolls just so they can get more money for the auction since they don't benefit from it anyway.

If I'm not mistaken, the state has the incentive to make the listing get as much money as possible because when someone claims the money the government gets a portion of the money as income tax or the government collects the entire sum of money after X amount of time it because they only have to hold it for a set amount of time legally.
 
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