Cerulean wrote:Let's go just by the mintages here:
1942-1977: 7,898,416,832
1978-1979: 1,665,113,600
1980-1981: 2,121,268,500
1982-1996: 16,477,457,394
1997-1999: 2,639,071,000
everything else (1920-1941, 2000-2009): 8,687,575,388
Of those groups, the '78-'79 range is the scarcest. Obviously, age and attrition factor into the availability of each group, but I'm going to ignore that for the moment.
For every '79-'79 you find, you will find 4.74 from 1942-1977, 1.27 from 1980-1981, 9.90 from 1982-1996, 1.58 from 1997-1999, and 5.22 from everything else.
In terms of percentages, 20% are from 1942-1977, 4% are from 1978-1979, 5% are from 1980-1981, 42% are from 1982-1996, 7% are from 1997-1999, and 22% are from everything else.
However, for a large number of reasons, your mileage may vary.
Nice but 1997-1999 are in Zinc, not copper. I don't thing anyone keep them, at least i know i don't.
I do keep 1941 and older, but they are rare enough, they won't break up the stats. I meant mine from sorting, not yours from the mintage.
My actual get is exactly 43% copper on average. I reject 57% steel/zinc.
frugalcanuck did you actually sort them based years and go dump back to the bank 1980-2010 coppers/zinc/steel ? I'm really interest to see if that's something that can be done in reality.
The first pass you sort you can get from $0.01 to a minimum of $0.022 each coins, more on others 1981 and older. Net profit of at min $0.012 for each coins, probably on average $0.015-16 for each pieces. Is it really worth it to sort twice (twice the job and more coins to bring back to the bank) to get at max $0.006 per coins if they are older than 1978, lower if they are 1982 and newer coins on the second pass ? (all counted on a perfect sorting, number get worst if you can't perfect sort them with a 60-75% results instead of 100%)
And in the end what's really count it's shipping cost (based on weight, not face value) and melt value also based on weight, not face value.So even if it has cost you a little more face value for the same weight, it may not worth the time to double sort them and having lot more to dump at bank.
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