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First post here, but I've been lurking for awhile. I've been coin roll hunting for about two years now, but this past year, I've really concentrated on searching pennies and have amassed probably $250 face of copper. I'm here in rural Wisconsin and have 4 banks to choose from but two main ones where I have accounts. My main bank provides me with the bulk of the pennies as they have a coin dump machine in the lobby and go through a considerable amount of coins. Last week I told "Lynn" the gal in charge of hard count that my goal til the end of the year was to go through $500. She looked in the room and said she could set me up with $150 right now and she would not send any pennies out to the Fed like she does every Tuesday. I teach WI CCW courses and had a couple students run through the course, so I usually buy pennies after my CCW classes. So yesterday I went in to get $200 worth and she says the other branch from a small town 20 miles away just brought over a load of pennies. It would appear one of those schools just had a penny war and that bank got all the pennies. So I ask what can I get and she starts figuring. She says she has $750 available in pennies for me. Wow, so I get $325 initially and let her know as I get those sorted I will take the rest as I make my dumps. She promised she would not send any of them back to the Fed. So it looks like I got a lot of sorting to get started on. I'm starting today as I have the day off and have recently started keeping statistics and documenting my take percentages, unique coins, 1982's, Canadians, Wheats, BU, etc. So far before starting to document I had estimated 25% and now that i'm keeping statistics, it would appear that is the consistant copper percentage. One thing of note, I have been saving 1982's and then weighing them on a gram scale when I get a ziplock bag full. Couple weeks ago I weighed out 13 pounds of 1982's. Ratio was 10 pounds copper, 3 pounds zinc 1982. Makes it very worthwhile to keep sorting 1982's.

So I will keep the group aprised of my $750 sort. Should be able to knock off at least $25 a day. However with work and Holiday's it may take awhile. I look forward to finding some new, unique coins because of this penny war take and can only hope some kid grabbed all of mom and dad's wheats they were saving and dumped them in the penny war box.

Thanks for the great site.

Sounds like a great plan for the Holidays

Head over to the member introduction thread say hello!
http://www.realcent.org/viewforum.php?f=49

You should go and try to grab all the rest of the pennies sooner than later. As nice as she may have been, I bet she would still prefer to get them out of there faster if possible rather than have them in her way. Typically the tellers like to get rid of the bags as fast as they can and would rather not hang on to them when they could have just had the Brinks guy haul them off. You want to try to be the guy that makes things easier for them by taking everything off of their hands quickly.

Your situation may vary obviously, but it's never a bad thing to try to make everything as slick and easy for the teller as you can so that you are viewed as an asset as opposed to a pain in the.. We are all coin guys so mostly we are a pain to them, but doing what you can to make everything as quick and easy as possible never hurts.

Sounds like you got a great source there!! Best of luck!!

Welcome. I agree with NH. Grab all you can promptly. While the teller may agree to hold the manager might not. Stock pile at home. If cash is problem, charge personal items, use cash for cents. Once sorted dump zinc to pay charge card. Good luck. Keep sorting and don't forget to thank the teller with chocolate.

This could also be a lesson to those who think that because they live in a rural area without many banks acquiring supply is too hard.

Well done

Thanks for all the feedback. I figure I will take that advice and get another $250 tomorrow. That will almost clean out their room. I do keep my tellers well supplied in bags of chocolate.

First $75 sorted today. Looks like a consistent 75%/25% zinc to copper ratio. Nice assortment of wheats and canadians, but nothing old; so far and I'd say 1% 1982's. Located a 2 cent Euro coin. Never seen one of those before. Lots more to go. Going to Northern Illinois for the weekend for a Christmas celebration, so I will be delayed somewhat. However, I'm bringing a $25 box along with me so my wife's relatives can really think I've gone nuts!

anyone live near him that could loan/rent a ryedale?

Welcome! Looking forward to hearing more from you when you get back home.

My weekend trip to Illinois did not work out due to work, however I still had the time off. So I spent most of the weekend at home alone and have sorted $275 thus far. I will return tomorrow to my dump bank but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna average a 25% copper average. Getting probably 20 wheats for every $50 sorted. My earliest wheat has been a 1916 and a 1910. Another canadian penny from 1940 so it has George VI on it. Also last night I found what appears to be nearly a 1945, almost BU wheat cent. Foreign coins thus far is something marked norge, so I'm assuming Norweigan, a 2 euro cent.

So I have $375 left to sort. I've got all the "School Penny War coins all sorted. Now I've got 7-$50 Fed Reserve bags left to go plus a Brinks box. I will keep plugging away.

OK, so today I finished the last $100. Here's the results of hand sorting $763 worth of pennies during the month of December. Starting in Dec. I have taken the time to compile a few statistics and keep track of what I'm sorting, percentages, etc. I have a clear average of a 25% copper take. I have also collected the following from this month's sort. Wheats-256, Canadian-224, 2009-469, 1982's-1,932. I also began to obtain as many BU or near mint state pennies as I could find as I plan on working on filling the 1909-2009 Dansco hardcover as my master collection and probably a couple of the cheaper Whitman modern penny books. Anything not used will go back in the respective copper or zinc collection bags/boxes.

As far as non-1930-50's Wheats I found the following: 1910, 1916, 1917x2, 1918, 1919, 1919S, 1920, 1925x2, 1926, 1929. Also a very clean, coppery 1945 and 1956 Wheat. I also found the following George VI Canadian pennies: 1937, 1940x2, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1952x2, Queen 1967 Dovesx2. I figure another $500 worth of sorting and I should finish filling a Prego Spaghetti jar full from my sorting for this year. This should give me a nice selection to put in a Canadian small cent book.

Unique finds were as follows: Bahamas Penny, Swiss 10 Franc, 2 Euro cent, 50 ORE Noreg (Norweigan?), Australian 5 cent.

Unfortunately no Indian Heads and I have just found 2 IH from Brinks Boxes from my dump bank. Probably have sorted $1,000-$1200 and just found 2 IH.

All in all it was a good December. I think I'm gonna take a break for a little bit unless my bank lady sets something really good aside. Nonetheless, I will keep checking in with her. She and the other clerks at the local credit union where I got most of my pennnies were very well rewarded with chocolate this december.

Sounds like fun!

Sorted $1200 and found TWO Indian Heads?

Where in Wisconsin is this?

Helpful hint - concentrate on getting the zincs recycled into more pennies...

I'm in West Central Wisconsin. I just stopped at my 2nd choice bank today and they informed me they just rolled up all the change they had received from the Salvation Army Red Kettle drive this Christmas season. They said they had lots of pennies for me. I'm trying to slow down here, not increase my sorting! Still had to buy 100 rolls. We'll see how these turn out before I buy any more.

hcplanner wrote:I'm in West Central Wisconsin. I just stopped at my 2nd choice bank today and they informed me they just rolled up all the change they had received from the Salvation Army Red Kettle drive this Christmas season. They said they had lots of pennies for me. I'm trying to slow down here, not increase my sorting! Still had to buy 100 rolls. We'll see how these turn out before I buy any more.

This should be interesting !!!!!!!!