Culling the copper... in Okinawa

Bobbypins

Hero Member
May 31, 2008
503
134
Okinawa, Japan
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
1
Detector(s) used
Whatever gets the job done
Primary Interest:
Beach & Shallow Water Hunting
Being in Okinawa has some advantages and disadvantages. While it's a great work environment and is akin to living in paradise, when it comes to CRH'ing... not so much. My wife went back to the US for a few months on vacation, and I stayed here to take care of the dogs and enjoy having time to myself. Looking back on it... it was pretty damn fabulous!! No nagging. No complaining. Cooking for just one person. Staying up and drinking as much beer as I wanted. AND I got to leave the toilet seat up.

I digress though...

There are numerous military bases here on island. Being a military contractor, I can get to every one of them if I wanted to. Some are big... Some are small. I happen to work on the largest of them all. Kadena.

A few years back, the various shops on base stopped using pennies, and have gone to the "penny rounding". The only place that doesn't do this are all of the post offices. That said, there's stacks of pennies at all of the banks. So while the wife was away, and to fill my time when I was drinking beer, I thought, "Hey... Why not sort pennies?" So the adventure began.

I started off slow and hand sorted the first few boxes. Then I realized what a complete waste of time this was and bought a Ryedale from Andy. The bad thing about culling copper here is that the bank requires that all coins be ROLLED when returned. Sorting with the Ryedale was easy, especially when I worked up to $600/week... but rolling those damn things took a whole day to do just $200. UGH.

But the mission is done. I culled all of the pennies on Kadena, Foster, Kinser, Courtney, and Hansen. I'm not driving way up north to hit Schwab, so I'll let someone else get those. The smaller bases don't have many boxes in their vault, so I just skipped em. It wasn't worth the drive to pick up 2 lousey boxes anyway.

The final tally is 585 LBS of pure, unadulterated copper. The average box was in the 20-30% range, with some being higher. I also managed to pull about $10 worth of wheats.

Since I'm done with my penny sorting for the time being, I sent my Ryedale to my brother (Pipster) since he coin roll hunts as well. I'm sure he'll be posting about his copper percentages down the road.

Without putting everything on a scale, I'm going to say that I now have a TON of copper between what I have here, and what I have at home. Maybe when I finally get back to the States, I can start sorting pennies full time like I want. My goal is to have 10 tons of copper. There's no rhyme or reason to that... I just like the way 10 TONS sounds.

HH everyone.

Nate
 

Upvote 0
what about finding a way to usurp the melting ban? Since you are in Japan - I thought the law for 'exporting' - hell the coins are already off the continent.
 

That was an interesting read there Nate, best of luck to you in your future goals! HH. Maverick.
 

Thanks for the replies!

I thought about scrapping them here, but I have a couple of things going against me with that. #1. I don't speak Japanese, so trying to explain to the local scrap yard guys (IF i can find one) would be difficult at a minimum. #2. Since the "Americans" always seem to get screwed on things around here in a lot of places, I fear that, at best, they would offer me extrememly low for my copper stash.

Shipping them back to the US could go two ways. I could hold onto them for the time being, and have the company I work for ship it back home (whenever that is) on their dime. OR... I could ship it home now (which is the plan) in medium flat rate USPS boxes for $10.85 each. That's not a big deal to me cost wise since I'm still ahead of the game vs. buying a CTU from someone else. I'd rather just mail them myself so I know that none 'walk off' during the company move.
 

Bobbypins said:
Thanks for the replies!

I thought about scrapping them here, but I have a couple of things going against me with that. #1. I don't speak Japanese, so trying to explain to the local scrap yard guys (IF i can find one) would be difficult at a minimum. #2. Since the "Americans" always seem to get screwed on things around here in a lot of places, I fear that, at best, they would offer me extrememly low for my copper stash.

Shipping them back to the US could go two ways. I could hold onto them for the time being, and have the company I work for ship it back home (whenever that is) on their dime. OR... I could ship it home now (which is the plan) in medium flat rate USPS boxes for $10.85 each. That's not a big deal to me cost wise since I'm still ahead of the game vs. buying a CTU from someone else. I'd rather just mail them myself so I know that none 'walk off' during the company move.

You could have the company do it and just box them up, devise a numbering scheme, and make sure everything checks out once you get back stateside. 10.85 each is going to add up in a hurry otherwise. You could even get the movers to sign off on the log sheet as part of the agreement with the move.
 

The only thing with that (which sounds good in theory) would be the possible exclusion of the moving company to ship "money", and thus, rendering any claim of loss moot. And when the movers come to pack your stuff, they want a detailed description of contents for customs declaration and accountability.
 

wow an interesting article, thanks for sharing... do the penny boxes in japan look the same as those in america?
i'm sure they probrably came from america at one time..
hh
buff
 

Nate,

Why would you waste time CRH when you were pulling rings out of the water daily? 585lbs of copper is a lot. Was that a typo?

I've got jobs on Kadena, Schwab, but unfortunately for me we use subs to do the installs. No free trips to Okinawa unfortunately.

By the way, I am headed to Tokyo at the end of the month. Where did you find most of your finds? In the water or on the beach? I'm looking forward to picking up lots of 500yen ($5) coins. But I'll settle for a boatload of 100yen ($1) coins :)
 

he pulled some good numbers while he was there i am ready to rip through my share while still running halves the only problem i see is the return volume i.e dumps as well as pennies have a tendency to be corroded and rejected. as it is i have been hand sorting copper for a bit say 50-100 bucks a month and have just now sorted that out for $135 face in copper
 

Nate,

Why would you waste time CRH when you were pulling rings out of the water daily? 585lbs of copper is a lot. Was that a typo?

I've got jobs on Kadena, Schwab, but unfortunately for me we use subs to do the installs. No free trips to Okinawa unfortunately.

By the way, I am headed to Tokyo at the end of the month. Where did you find most of your finds? In the water or on the beach? I'm looking forward to picking up lots of 500yen ($5) coins. But I'll settle for a boatload of 100yen ($1) coins :)

I don't feel like I wasted my time with the pennies as the wife wasn't here and I didn't have a whole lot to do. Besides, I kinda enjoyed it..... and Yes.... 585 lbs. No typo there. Could be more, but at 45 lbs per box... and 13 boxes later, that's about right.

Most all of my platinum and gold rings came from the water. Some deep, some not so deep. The current exchange rate here on Okinawa that the bank is giving is something like 80 Yen to the USD, so a 500 yen is worth $6.25. My best day ever was finding over 10,000 Yen.... and I got 11 500 yen coins. Best of luck to you on mainland.
 

Hi Bobbypins,

Um just a quick question, how are you going to bring that 600 pounds of copper home? Also are there any copper coins from Japan? I think it would be really interesting to learn that the ryedale works on japanese coins too :)

And yes 10 tons does sound nice, freakin' heavy, but nice.

~JobIII
 

Also are there any copper coins from Japan?


10 yen coins have been bronze since the 1950s. They are worth around $.10 in exchange. Since they are still minted, I would think that the melt value is less than face.
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top