2nd bag revisions/results

[Rosco53]

Well, learned from my first bag and revised my technique for the 2nd. Changed my board to allow for a higher volume and time saving by taping cups down. I think I'm going to change the tape to velcro next round. Cups are the 5oz walmart brand plastic ones, 80 for under $3, labelled each with a year, then variations on the lower part of the cups.


Anyway, after sorting through the coins, I found: 24.48% copper (lowest since I started keeping track, but figure about average, my 35% was an anomaly). Got 9 S mint coins (including the 73 I was missing, I now have all the lincoln memorial cents, though not 100% sure on my 82 dates). Pulled 12 canadian, including 6 different designs, which I thought was quite cool, wanted to pull the 50's one since I saw a pic on here about it



Lastly, pulled 16 wheat pennies



Including this beauty, my 2nd 100yo coin (which I feel VERY fortunate about, having only sorted about $135)



Needless to say, VERY hooked now. B-day is coming up, putting the $ towards a nice USB microscope so I can seriously start looking for the DDO's and 09 variations (not to mention save my eyes). Also found a local gentleman looking to sell 35lbs of copper pennies, he sorted them in a machine for the copper, didn't sort for wheats or anything he said, so figure worth a try. Few extra bucks to up my odds on wheats and maybe a 2nd IHP...

 

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[Dozer D]

Not telling you how to sort & store your cents, but if you can now find two shallow cardboard boxes with a lid to split the cups 5-wide by 6-deep, this way you can move them when you need to, and also protect them from falling over. Once you get enough in each cup, resort and only keep the BEST OF THE BEST into cent rolls that can be marked & logged on paper, then store the FULL ROLLS into a sturdy cent box. The .rejects of 1983 & later can be sent back to the bank., the '82 need to be sorted down between copper vs zinc, large vs small date, D vs P., the reject COPPERS of '81 & earlier can stored (hoarded) for future copper sales if it ever happens. You can also expand your initial search to having a separate cup for "P" & "D" as you go, this way avoiding that secondary sort, which means you will need 4 or 5 cardboard boxes to house them all. IMO this is about what I do with my cents, saving the BEST for the 15-grandkids folders and rolls, etc..... Good luck in cents CRH.

 

[Rosco53]

Appreciate the suggestion, was def trying to figure out how to store my coins. I got the 4 HG Harris books to store the years, sort through for the "best" ones to put in there. Not hoarding coppers at all. Only reason I sorted by year before was because I was doing relatively small quantities (I did 20 rolls at the most, before my bags). I'd count them out after and mark down the D/P ratio, and the overall %, by year, compared to mint #'s, and then compare between breaks. Mainly, I got bored and like excel... Was neat to see how the #'s went between breaks, have an idea of what to expect, whats exceptional, etc. Now that I've graduated to bags, I may just sort out S marks from the coppers, and then extract key dates (70, 72, 83, 84, 92, 95, 98, 99, 09) and look for the DDOs and whatnot through those, and to hell with the rest. I'm mainly "collecting" wheats right now, always liked those growing up so... Holding onto the 09's as well, and any "random" finds (gotten a Panamanian and "Slovenija" cent so far, pretty neat I thought), as well as canadians. Any suggestions on how to best store wheat pennies that don't fit in the books? LOT of 56/57s.

 

[yankeesfan4life]

. Any suggestions on how to best store wheat pennies that don't fit in the books? LOT of 56/57s.

I like to store my extra wheats in coin tubes by year, regardless of mintmarks.

 

[Rosco53]

Like the hobby lobby ones? https://www.hobbylobby.com/Crafts-H...rency-Collecting/Cent-Size-Coin-Tubes/p/28126

 

[yankeesfan4life]

How do you even get bags?

 

[Rosco53]

How do you even get bags?

Personally, my bank recommended I use them. I explained to them what I was doing, my teller was kind enough to talk to the manager, and they suggested I go with bags, to save on paper waste. Depending on your branch, if its a "main branch" or not, you will probably want to call ahead. I cycle through 3 branches of my bank right now. I spoke with the teller and manager at the "main branch" and it was their suggestion I go with bags. After that, I'd call other branches and ask if it were possible for me to purchase a bag through them. I'd explain what I was doing, and the fact that they'd only be out like $0.75 in pennies when all was said and done, as that was about my average "keepers" from a bag. All 3 branches have been extremely helpful thus far, tellers wishing me luck and whatnot, they all think its a neat idea, so I've been rather fortunate insofar as that goes. Seems I'm the only one in the area that does this, least pennies (an older distant relation of mine apparently does higher denominations once monthly, just found out).

Basically, call your bank(s), be polite, and ask about purchasing a bag of whatever coin you sort. I'm sticking to pennies since I don't have much $ to spare, so $50 a bag to sort through 5000 pennies. So far I've found 2 dimes too, so I'm even ahead a little ;-). Best of luck hunting!