Odd box - had to hand sort

[68Camaro]

Have been machine sorting now for quite a few months, but had to change approach for this box. I picked up a box at a different branch while I was out at lunch the other day. They were short on coin but grudgingly let me have one box, this a Dunbar supplied box. As I started on it my first observation was an abnormal amount of wheaties. So many so that I finally had to stop and re-start over by hand. I didn't keep exact stats, but in round numbers I pulled about 4% wheats, which is about 4x my norm, and included a 1909 and a 1910, as well as a fair number of other teens, and a few S mints, which are hard to come by here.

As I got into the hand sorting, I started noticing an extraordinary number of 82s. It seemed like about 20% were 82s! As I went on I realized that it wasn't just 82s, but that almost all of the memorial cents, probably 90% of them, were in the 79 to 82 range. (There were a smattering of other years, but an unusual number of these 4 years.)

And lastly, it seemed that the total copper content was very low for my area. I'm usually in the 21-23% range, rarely vary much (except for the recent Brinks issue, or dumps of Grandpa's CWR stash). This box was about 15%.

I've seen some odd CWR sets. But out of hundreds of armor car boxes, this is the first I've seen like this.

Is this just a statistical fluke? Or is there something more of a pattern here. Does Dunbar use some type of supersorter? Is it possible that their supersorter misses certain years? Like wheats and 79-82, such that they have begun to be condensed in Dunbar coin? Seems unlikely, but just a wild thought.

[inflationhawk]

I would think with the volume we sort, we're bound to find an oddball box somewhere along the line. Who knows why you got a weird distribution. Their are always tails in every statistical sample. It would be interesting to learn the tale behind your tail though!

[everything]

Simple. Someone brought in a jug of coins, possibly/probably just an old stash of someone's that they were putting heavy amounts of copper into the hoard, maybe knowing the penny was going to have a composition change eventually, but had also put quite a few wheats into the hoard as well. Probably had planned on keeping it, who knows, right? This hoard was dumped through a coin sorter bags, eventually went to the hopper, and you got lucky enough to get a box of it.

[MUTiger]

I got a bag like this from my pickup bank two weeks ago. Overall about 81% copper with about $10 of what were AU-BU cents from 79, 80 & 81. There were also 239 Canadian cents 1981 or earlier. The remaining ~$10 was a normal mix of about 25% copper. I figured somebody brought in a stash of about $40 that someone else had saved and it happened to fit all in the middle of a bag. I got the bag from before and after and neither of them are as rich in copper or BU early 80s cents.

mutiger

[68Camaro]

These are probably the sources - just seemed unlikley in a wrapped box, due to all the processing and mixing that generally would take place. But I'm sure it is something like this. Thx

[henrysmedford]

One day Franklin got 210 1962-D AU cents out of a $50 bag of rolled cents. I also would go with someone dumped a water jug of cents into the Coinstar that was saved years ago and you are the winner of it.!

[tedandcam]

I pick up at Brinks serviced banks and dump at Dunbar serviced banks. I figured out who was who by picking up. So, I have gotten several Dunbar boxes to sort. Ihave noticed the same thing, low percentages of coppers (15%) aand twice the number of wheats (about 20-25 per box). Teens and twenties seemed to be as normal as the 30s and 40s. Im pretty new at sorting and wanted to bulk up on the copper and went this direction (Brinks to Dunbar). Now I may reverse the senario,as I have made some headway in coppers and would like to build up more wheats.

I have read in other posts that some of the machine sorters people use miss the wheats and they fall in with zincs. Is that what some of you ryedale users are finding? If so, this might add to 68camaros suspition of Dunbar is using some type of sorter. I live in central- east part of Missouri (very near St Louis)

P.S. Brinks gets me 25% coppers and 10 wheats