"Roll-playing" used to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of collecting coins -- and, on occasion, one of the most rewarding.

I can remember going to the bank religiously every Friday, cashing my paycheck, and taking most of the money in the form of rolls of coins.

Now and then, I would ask for brand-new rolls of current-year coins, planning to set them aside for some future rainy day -- by which time they presumably would have risen significantly in value.

For the most part, however, I would leave the bank with dozens of rolls of circulated cents -- and possibly nickels, too -- stuffed in my pockets or, if I'd had the foresight to bring one, in a box or bag. My objective with these was not to hold onto them, but to look through them in quest of scarce-date coins.

The time was the early 1960s, and worthwhile coins could be found in circulation -- including rolls from the bank -- with regularity. My prize find, in 1961, was a 1914-D Lincoln cent; I judged it to be in very good condition and valued it at $35. I also found many semi-key coins, however, including such scarcer Lincolns as the 1915-S, 1922-D and 1931-D.

Sadly, there have been relatively few premium-value coins in pocket change lately, so there isn't as much incentive to search through rolls from the bank.

Several recent experiences suggest to me, in fact, that far from gaining something of value by getting rolls at the bank, collectors may run the risk of actually losing money.

On three separate occasions over the last few months, I have been shortchanged when I handed a teller $10 and asked for a roll of quarters at my friendly neighborhood bank in Glen Rock, New Jersey. (In reality, it's a branch of the East Coast mega-bank that swallowed up my neighborhood bank a few years ago.)

Once, I got a roll with only 39 "clad" Washington quarters instead of 40. Another time, the roll contained just 38 quarters -- a 5-percent loss on my "investment." The third time, there were 40 coins, but two of them were common, late-date foreign coins worth a great deal less than 25 cents: a British shilling and a Spanish 5-pesetas piece. Both are about the same size as the U.S. quarter and of similar composition and appearance.

I could rationalize, of course, that the foreign coins were placed in the roll by a hobbyist looking to stimulate new interest in world coinage. They did, after all, cause me to grab my copy of the Krause-Mishler "telephone book" to see how much they were worth.

The cynic in me suspects, though, that the motivation had more to do with profiteering than proselytizing. And it's hard to believe the short-count rolls resulted from anything other than old-fashioned greed.

I guess you can't blame someone for trying to make a quick buck -- or even a quick 50 cents. What bothers me most of all is the fact that my "friendly" bank appears to be a party to this penny-ante -- or rather, quarter-ante -- form of theft.

With avarice all too typical of their industry, some banks evidently are trying to have it both ways. Several years ago, a bank in the nearby city of Clifton, New Jersey, made headlines in our local newspaper when it sought to impose a 1-percent fee on a 12-year-old boy before it would accept his deposit of $10 worth of coins.

The boy's outraged mother wrote a letter of protest to her congressman, and he introduced legislation that would have barred banks from imposing such fees on anyone under the age of 16. Regrettably, nothing came of it: Soon afterward, the congressman was swept out of office in the anti-incumbent tide of 1994, and his legislation was washed away as well.

Is it too much to ask for banks to count coins --without assessing a nuisance fee -- when customers bring them in? And shouldn't they be expected to verify that rolls contain the proper value before they hand them out?

Perhaps the only way to avoid being shortchanged is to stand in front of the teller and count the coins in front of her before you leave her window.

Given their recent history, though, the banks might well establish a "parking" fee for anyone who lingered for more than 10 seconds. Some of them charge already when customers call the banks' automated phone lines to double-check their balances -- or, for that matter, when anyone "ties up" a teller for anything more than a simple, straightforward deposit or withdrawal.

Knowingly or otherwise, banks once played an important part in whetting collectors' interest in numismatics. Today, it would appear, their role -- and their rolls -- have changed.