Major find not likely

I had an email from a hobbyist who offered a suggestion.

A column should be created for Numismatic News for the purpose of ordering rolls and bags of coins that are advertised as unsearched.

Then the contents of the roll and bags should be enumerated.

My view?

That would become boring very quickly. The coins in those rolls are not going to reveal any vast treasures?

How do I know?

I have been sitting at this desk for 35 years and I have never had a communication from a reader that said he or she had ordered some unsearched coins and was rewarded with a spectacular find.

Not once in 35 years.

If such a find were going to occur, I am sure I would have heard about it by now.

Sure, there is always the possibility. That’s what keeps people buying these things.

I remember when I first began reading numismatic periodicals when I was 12 years old. Ads offering unsearched coins caught my attention. For a moment or two my imagination was engaged, but in the end I did not order anything, nor have I since.

Every collector has to go after what appeals to him or her. I cannot dictate their action, but what I believe I can say with certainty is the readership for such a column would not stay interested very long.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper is winner of the 2013 Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."