Worst penny box EVER

ianSF · Feb 29, 2008

Every now and then I stop at a bank and get a $25 box of pennies and cull the coppers. With the recent rise in copper, I got one today to go through tonight. Stopped at the Wells Fargo across the street from the San Francisco Federal Reserve and bought a sealed box.

This was the worst box ever in every way. Out of 2500 pennies, I came up with SEVENTEEN coppers, no wheaties. 2483 zincs that are going into the coin counter. Ick! This was the same branch where I found an Indian head in December and have found several silver halves.

Any ideas on why it's so bad?

Who Ryedaled San Francisco when I wasn't looking?

Goes4ever · Mar 1, 2008

wow, my last $50 worth came out with 1,981 coppers. I bought the bag off their machine though. I think you have a better chance getting copper

TxTim · Mar 1, 2008

Hate to say it, but WF uses Brinks around Houston and all the Brinks boxes have been cleaned of copper in the last 2 weeks. Somethings up. Either Brinks or a big contractor is removing all pre-82's from circulation. I had 16 copperless boxes this week and they were not new pennies.
See this:
http://realcent.forumco.com/topic~TOPIC_ID~2001.asp

solariscool · Mar 1, 2008

A few weeks ago I ordered 3 boxes of pennies. All 3 boxes arrived as minty fresh 2007, untouched before. It sucked... normally I find a bunch of copper.

mm12000 · Mar 1, 2008

I just opened up a box from WF too - out of 8 rolls, I got 2 copper. They are definitely removing the copper. Guess i gotta get them from another bank now.

ianSF · Mar 1, 2008

Just back from another Wells Fargo here by where I live. Bought $45 in loose rolls from the tellers at two branches. They're probably all customer dumps. Broke open 10 rolls and found the percentages back to normal. Most were paper wrapped and mayb 75% had customer account numbers written on them. I think that's the kind I'll look for frm now on.