jrf30
Bronze Member
I have never bought bags of pennies before. I figure that my bank mostly has MY rejects,. so buying them would make no sense. I fill "most" of their bags. But, I was there to dump some halves yesterday, and the teller told me an old man was in earlier. He brought lots and lots of cigar boxes, on a dolly. He told her that his father, who was 101, died, and he was hoarding coins just over time. Just trhrowing them in boxes and then not spending them. he had already gone through them and pulled out all the silver and wheats (bummer!) and now he wanted to dump them. So he put them in their coin counter, and filled three $50 bags of pennies, plus one quarters, one nickels and two dimes.
After asking her a little about it, I realized that these were still older coins, even if he culled out the silver. He said most of the coins were from the 70s or earlier. So I convinced her to sell me the three bags of pennies. Maybe he took the wheats, but at lest it sounded like I could get better than my 16.8% copper ratio off the bags.
Last night I worked one bag. My Ryedale is still waiting on a part, but I made it work (With effort) well enough to test a bag.
Out of 5,000 pennies in the bag, only 152 were NOT copper. Most of those were 1983 or 1984. That means 4,848 WERE copper. 96.9% copper. WOW.
Plus I found 22 wheats already, and have not hand sorted the copper side of my Ryedale. THose were just ones I saw while watching the piles as they came out. So he MISSED some wheats TOO.
Lastly, the QUALITY of many of the copper pennies is amazing. They are as red as I have ever seen in copper pennies. Not the gold light color of the new ones today (zinc) but a nice toned red color. I"ll take a picture of some when I finish my third bag so you can see the pennies.
It isn't gold, it isn't even silver, but it is NICE to get 97% copper in a bag. I hope (And think) the other two bags ALSO give me 97%. That will add to my copper hoard FAST. :-) And the red ones I'm going to separate out and keep for the longer term. Just because. They look AU (and i know nothing about grading, so take that with a grain of salt) to me!
After asking her a little about it, I realized that these were still older coins, even if he culled out the silver. He said most of the coins were from the 70s or earlier. So I convinced her to sell me the three bags of pennies. Maybe he took the wheats, but at lest it sounded like I could get better than my 16.8% copper ratio off the bags.
Last night I worked one bag. My Ryedale is still waiting on a part, but I made it work (With effort) well enough to test a bag.
Out of 5,000 pennies in the bag, only 152 were NOT copper. Most of those were 1983 or 1984. That means 4,848 WERE copper. 96.9% copper. WOW.
Plus I found 22 wheats already, and have not hand sorted the copper side of my Ryedale. THose were just ones I saw while watching the piles as they came out. So he MISSED some wheats TOO.
Lastly, the QUALITY of many of the copper pennies is amazing. They are as red as I have ever seen in copper pennies. Not the gold light color of the new ones today (zinc) but a nice toned red color. I"ll take a picture of some when I finish my third bag so you can see the pennies.
It isn't gold, it isn't even silver, but it is NICE to get 97% copper in a bag. I hope (And think) the other two bags ALSO give me 97%. That will add to my copper hoard FAST. :-) And the red ones I'm going to separate out and keep for the longer term. Just because. They look AU (and i know nothing about grading, so take that with a grain of salt) to me!
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