Missing cents make no sense.

One of the only negative aspects of coin roll hunting is the infamous short roll.

More often than not you will encounter these frustrating examples as customer wrapped rolls, though I have now started to see bank wrapped rolls or armored service wrapped rolls (Loomis, Brinks, etc) come up short as well. Below is a photo of 3 rolls of nickels I picked up from a local bank. It’s not difficult to notice that the roll in the middle is shorter than the two on either side. That roll ended up being 3 coins short, that being 15 cents under the expected $2.00 that should have been inside.

One of these things is not like the others. That sucks.

If you’re only picking up a few rolls at a time, it may benefit you to visually inspect your rolls before leaving your bank, just to ensure you are getting all that you are paying for. This is especially true on dimes and quarters, as a few missing coins from those denominations will add up rather quickly, causing you to loose dollars instead of cents.

Stand the rolls up and if one or more is noticeably shorter than the others simply bring it to the attention of a teller and they will undoubtedly swap it for a different roll. Ensure you do this inside the bank before you walk out the door. Once you leave the premises the bank has no way to verify the short occurring. It’s policy, nothing personal of course. If the bank payed back every “alleged” short change, I’m sure they would go out of business.

It’s not a great situation, but be aware that you will probably come up short eventually. I generally chock it up to a entrance fee into the hunt. I know that there is always a chance that I will be out a few cents or even a few dollars in the case of a tray of customer wrapped dimes that I picked up a few weeks ago. You should be aware of this as well.

For the sake of our hobby: If you return your coins to the bank in rolls, ensure that your counts are accurate and that your rolls are sealed correctly. If you pick up customer wrapped rolls from a bank, ensure they look visually correct before you walk out of the bank.