Wheaties and more

[Tabfry]

Many here post their wheatie and, occasionally, their copper findings. Do you look for more than just wheats and copper? Do many of you also look for variations like the 2000 wide AM, the 1992D close AM, 1984 double ear, so on and so forth...

 

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[Dozer D]

I do both CRH and collecting coins. I go through the process of sorting out the copper, sort the good ones by date, wide/close AM's, etc. Since I'm retired, I' be got plenty of time on my hands to do the detail searching, hoarding copper, silver hunting, and more. Enjoyed the hobby for years now, CRH is challenging.

 

[GMan00001]

I used to search for a handful of the varieties under magnification (1984 Doubled Ear, 1983 Rev DDO, 1992-D close AM, 1998 Wide AM, 1999 Wide AM, 2000 Wide AM to name a few off the top of my head), but now I only do a quick visual check on those that I notice. I don't date search all pennies any more, so only if the date is visible do I sometimes remember to scan for a variety. It's not that I didn't ever find anything as I did find some. I just couldn't continue to justify the extra time needed to do the variety search with how busy I was.

Although I don't have my notes in front of me as I am at work, from what I remember I found a 1992-D Close AM, a 1984 Doubled Ear, and about a dozen each of the 1998 Wide AM and 2000 Wide AM. There may have been others, but I don't recall those.

 

[AGBlex]

if its no a real blatant error i tend to just skip the smaller minor details. i've just been looking for odd coins wheats and foreigns

 

[mts]

I don't date check coins so I only search for wheats, coppers, IH's, and other odd coins. I did once sit down for five hours looking through a batch of rejected zincolns. I found one 1998 wide AM in lousy condition (probably worth about $2). I decided then and there that it wasn't worth it for me so I never did it again. I just don't have the patience for it. but I applaud those that do.

 

[mrhaz]

I search Lincoln Cents only, and since I started last July have had some great finds! To date:

(2) 1988D 1c RDV-006 (one was a Discovery Piece)
(1) 1997 P "Double Ear"
(2) 1964P 1DR-001
Several 98 and 00 WAMS
Countless RPMs and other errors and varieties
Over 1,000 Wheats including (2) 1909 VDBs

I can understand those who only search for Wheats and hord the copper, but there are some VERY valuable cents out there that only take a second or two to indentify once in hand. I can't imagine not looking at every 1992 P and D for the very valuable Close AM! I have compiled a list of about 30 cents I set aside for closer inspection with a loop. The minor stuff is still looked for as I sort, but if you attempted to find every 1960D RPM (for example), you'd be searching for over 160 different ones I think.

To each his own, that's what makes CRH fun I think. Good luck to one and all no matter what part of this fun hobby you follow! Bill

 

[GMan00001]

I can understand those who only search for Wheats and hord the copper, but there are some VERY valuable cents out there that only take a second or two to indentify once in hand.

I can agree that it only takes a second or two once the coin you want to search for a variety is in hand. It's doing the date search to retrieve all the ones I want to examine for varieties that takes a lot of the extra time.

When I hand sort a $50 bag of pennies for the wheats, IHC, foreign, etc., it takes about 25-30 minutes (approx. 3 pennies/second). To accomplish that rate, I don't turn over memorial cents to check the dates, but if the date side is up I will pick up the 1992-D to look for the close AM (most of the time) or a few other dates to look for their specific varieties.

When I used to date sort all of pennies and pick out the ones I wanted to do a variety search and then perform the variety search itself, if I remember correctly, a $50 bag of pennies would take between 90 and 120 minutes.

Assuming the variety search takes an extra hour for me, other uses of that hour might be
1) Variety search a $50 bag of pennies, hoping for an error
2) Search through $1000 in dimes and on average net 6 silver dimes (worth approx $15)
3) Search through $100 more in pennies picking out on average 32 wheats
4) Any of a number of other activities (kids/work/working out/watching tv/veg'ing on the couch)

For the couple years I did variety search pennies, I only found a couple of pennies that I would consider "valuable".

It all depends on what you enjoy and how much you value your time. I just find I don't get as much the enjoyment out of the extra time spent variety hunting as I do out of other activities. Like you said, each to their own.