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Haven't posted in awhile cause I haven't sorted in awhile and been off on other tangents. Anyway, thought I'd get a little sorted over the last few days.

My methodology: I put a handful of pennies (I try to go for about 50 at a time) in a 1-gal flat storage container, shake, and scan for dirty coins to pull out. If I happen to catch a wheat, canadian, S, or other oddity, I pull it out. I then tilt it to make them go to one end and flip them and scan again before dumping in another bucket to be Ryedaled. Wheats, Canadians, S, etc - these I only do a cursory scan for. I am primarily trying to keep garbage out of the Ryedale. Dump, scan, flip, scan, dump: this takes about 10-15 seconds per handful.

So the first bag had the normal 20-25% Cu, dozen or so Canadians, half dozen or so S, etc.

Next bag had 40 dimes and the usual assortment of wheats (a dozen or so), Canadians, S's, etc and a higher percentage of Cu.

The next bag had no silvery stuff at all but had only about 25 zincers. The rest was Cu.

The next bag has about 45-48% Cu, as scientifically ascertained from eyeballing them sitting in identical 1-gallon ice cream buckets. Weights: Zn is about 24# while the Cu is about 25# and both together look like 48.5#, all on a bathroom scale. Of course, Cu is heavier. Going strictly by volume, it looks like it is 45-48% Cu.

Anyway, not too bad I think, after having been out awhile.

If I had the cash, I'd go back and buy up all the bags at my source.

Well, off to dump Zn.

-james

While not mind-blowing, I'd say those are GREAT results. Looks like the recession (oops, I mean recovery) is really drawing out the old piggy banks and sock drawer contents!

Nice, I wish I had a local bank that had bags!

Joogaler: a hint - forget the banks. Go to the Credit Unions. -james

dixiebooks wrote:Joogaler: a hint - forget the banks. Go to the Credit Unions. -james

I don't have any Credit Unions close to where I live, so I don't have that option.

Joogaler wrote:

dixiebooks wrote:Joogaler: a hint - forget the banks. Go to the Credit Unions. -james

I don't have any Credit Unions close to where I live, so I don't have that option.

Ditto, NC isn't very plentiful with them.

I suppose CU's are a state-by-state thing. Here in Kingsport, I think there must be at least as many CU branches as bank branches. Anyway, my next suggestion would be to search for a bank with a self-service coin counter. Ask the vault teller if she will let you take the bags off her hands so she won't have to send them to the fed, thus saving the bank money. -james

dixiebooks wrote:Joogaler: a hint - forget the banks. Go to the Credit Unions. -james

This definitely varies by area--just because it is readily available in one part of our country doesn't mean it is elsewhere. We have Credit Unions but they do not have bags, only rolls. We have contacted all the banks and credit unions in my area and NONE of them offer bags. The only facility in the area that had a coin counting machine was the credit union but they didn't allow the bags to be bought from that machine and it isn't always at the branch I use as it is a "traveling coin counter". I also wouldn't use the machine as they were charging members to use it too. I can roll my coins for less than their fees.

Enjoy your coin searches, everyone.

Well, that bites. I guess I have it "more gooder" here. If you happen to be coming through the area, let me know ahead of time and perhaps I can get you hooked up with bags. There is certainly more here than what I can use myself. -james

40 dimes in a bag. That's profitable in it's own right