In the mid-1950s, when I was beginning to be really serious about coin collecting. I spent many an evening going through rolls of cents my father picked up at a bank or grocery store on his way home from work. These were all Wheaties, of course, and would be until 1959 when the Lincoln Memorial reverse was introduced.
Also, the rolls were all unsearched, and they often contained pre-1940 cents. In fact, they sometimes had pre-1930 or even pre-1920 cents in them. As you would expect, the older coins were usually more worn than the later ones, but occasionally the rolls