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OK, I have been hand sorting pennies for about 4-5 years. At my peak I was only doing maybe $50 a week but over the course of that many years, it still adds up. Plus my two sons do it too. Combined, we have a pretty good stack.

Now, lately I am down to just $10 per week. My average over that 4-5 year time span hear in southwestern Virginia has been a steady 24% copper. Never, NEVER have I been skunked. I went to the bank for some family banking duties day before yesterday and I had a spare $5 bill with me so of course I get 10 rolls. 2 of them are CWR and 8 are Brinks shrink wrap rolls. Keep in mind, I always have very good luck with the Brinks rolls copper wise and wheat wise too. But in the 8 Brinks roll - ONE STINKING COPPER PENNY!!!!! One copper out of 400 pennies. Basically a skunk - for the first time in the years I have been doing this, I felt a complete let down. So, does this mean that Brinks is cranking up the copper capturing or are there just more searchers in my area? I don't know and this is just the first time this ever happened but, for those of us who actually have fun searching, this was no fun at all.

I wll not stop though. The search will continue. Bythe way, the CWR were nice - 30 coppers in 2 rolls.

I am a hand sorter too. I started last year. I had an average of 22 coppers out of 100 then. Today I am averaging 17 out of 100. I blame the reduction in copper on all the other RC members in Florida.

I just got a Brinks box tonight and it looks like the whole box is 2011 with a few stripes mixed in (second one in a month). I thought they might be 2012 at first but no such luck. Torn whether I should crack all them to see if the few strips yield copper or buy my morning soda with the rolls. Merchants somewhat like the new pennies.

mutiger

mutiger wrote:I just got a Brinks box tonight and it looks like the whole box is 2011 with a few stripes mixed in (second one in a month). I thought they might be 2012 at first but no such luck. Torn whether I should crack all them to see if the few strips yield copper or buy my morning soda with the rolls. Merchants somewhat like the new pennies.

mutiger

Uh oh. You're scaring me away from moving out there this fall. "No, I actually withdrew from Mizzou. Why? Apparently their copper percentages suck."

Corsair wrote:

mutiger wrote:I just got a Brinks box tonight and it looks like the whole box is 2011 with a few stripes mixed in (second one in a month). I thought they might be 2012 at first but no such luck. Torn whether I should crack all them to see if the few strips yield copper or buy my morning soda with the rolls. Merchants somewhat like the new pennies.

mutiger

Uh oh. You're scaring me away from moving out there this fall. "No, I actually withdrew from Mizzou. Why? Apparently their copper percentages suck."

Usually the Brinks boxes yield 25-29 % with about 10-15 wheats. The bags I have been able to secure yield a little lower. On occasion though I get a box of new coin. It is part of the fun and as I said, I use a roll or two of pennies for C-store stops, Subway and McDonald's. They do not mind.

mutiger

Once in a while I'll go dump pennys at the bank and fill the whole $50 coin counter bag with zincs, oops.

everything wrote:Once in a while I'll go dump pennys at the bank and fill the whole $50 coin counter bag with zincs, oops.

Just did that this morning. I have gotten CWR from a bank that I think is someones dump because the only copper in the rolls came out on a double sort. Not sure the specifics of what I first acccepted (zinc or copper) but they made it past the first sort.


mutiger