Realcent.org

i was doing a penny run yesterday, and had two interesting things happen.
first i was at one of my dump banks, and talking to the teller when he says we had a guy in earlier this week asking for 3 boxes of pennies.
i suspected that someone else in my area was getting into the hobby/habit.
Next i went to another bank, different name, and got $50 dollars, the nice teller says she has 2 CWR boxes, and at least 1 BWR. Deciding not to put all of my eggs in one basket, i ask for one of each. I get back home, set up, and start searching thru the CWR.

search of 6 rolls yields 2 coppers, the rest zinc
so i decide to weigh the rest of them before breaking them open. Lo and behold they all weigh the same as Zinc.
at least i thought to weigh them instead of opening each one, and then having to reroll or send them to the dump bank.

conclusion: i got new neighbors. i hope they are nice to the tellers, or get bored and decide it is too much effort.
do any of you have this challenge?

on a brighter note:
hope everyone is having a great holiday, and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and a few nice old wheats in their stockings or penny rolls.

I have wheat hunters at my bag supply bank. So, at least the copper is safe. And he is buying boxes only and leaving my bags alone.

One of my pick-up banks had no penny boxes yesterday.
The teller said a guy bought them for his grandson.
Maybe he is just a wheat hunter also...
I might leave my name and number for him. I might be able to sell him some wheats or maybe CTU's.

I'm fortunate in that I have exclusive access to the cent bags from the small bank that I mine copper from. At best I can
only acquire 3 - 5 $25 bags a week but it's enough to keep a hand sorter entertained.
But on occasion, especially this time of the year, I will catch part of what appears to be another sorter's zinc dumps. Caught one bag like that recently....only a roll and a half of copper came out of it.

But sometimes there is a surprise along with whoever is using the bank as a zincoln dump. Last January I caught a bag that apparently had a zinc dump ran through the counter right after a dump of 476 wheats were made. All zinc on the top and pure wheats on the bottom. Surely another sorter wouldn't dump wheats with zincs....would they?

Over the last month or so, I have had a significant increase in tellers telling me of others getting pennies. I hear things like I am the third person that day asking for boxes of pennies, or tellers asking me what the deal is with pennies lately because lots of people want them. I am not sure if a lot more people are sorting, or if I just happen to be following around other sorters.

No problem like that here in upstate NY. Rural area outside of Syracuse, only two banks in the local area. The tellers here have no idea of "Bank Bags" of pennys. Just Boxes. I'm the only penny and nickle nut.

I'm a noob to penny sorting. We went to our nearest CU (45 miles away. I live in a small town) We asked for a box of pennies. The teller didn't have any. They said I was the 3rd person to ask that day. Maybe I'm your neighbor.

RedRockGirl wrote:I'm a noob to penny sorting. We went to our nearest CU (45 miles away. I live in a small town) We asked for a box of pennies. The teller didn't have any. They said I was the 3rd person to ask that day. Maybe I'm your neighbor.

hello neighbor!!!! good luck

I usually don't get boxes and bags. I'm more of a $10 at a time kind of guy. But every now and then I'll get a bag (no boxes at the banks in my area). A year or two ago, I asked for a bag and the head teller got all cranky and said that I couldn't just "bring them all back" if she gave me one. Turns out a guy had had them order him several bags, went through them and then brought them back and dumped them. Picking up and dumping at the same bank. Rookie.

I'm thoroughly convinced that I am not alone in my coin hunting ventures around Austin. At some banks where I've solicited coinage, I've received CWRs that are nothing but zinc zinc zinc. Once I even came across a batch that was labeled. This happened to me with half dollars as well twice. I haven't met face to face anyone in my area who does coin roll hunting, but from select pieces of evidence in circulation, I'm pretty convinced that there are others out there. To avoid this, I rarely ever go to banks that offer CWRs anymore; my main buy bank is Wells Fargo, because Brinks pools all the coinage from multiple areas together so I get a better, more representative sample of the present copper-to-zinc ratio. The problem with CWRs is that they're either really good or really bad. They are either stocked with old coinage from some elderly person's coin jar from the 1960s, or they're skunks amassed by a like-minded coin roll hunter in my area. It's too big of a gamble to be worth it.

So, in conclusion, I recommend only purchasing from banks that give out BWRs in order to get a truly representative sample of the coinage in your general region. At least if you feel like your efforts are conflicting with another hunter in your area; if you're having immense success with CWRs and bags, then you should resume your present hunting strategies.

Used to be you could get an all you can eat buffet of copper at 33% when I first started- also none of you guys were around too

The hobby has picked up since I started in 2007 which was only 5 years ago, but alot has changed. And I expect it to keep changing.

Be diligent and smart with your pick ups and dumps, and try to aim for bags off counters if possible

Romalae wrote:I'm thoroughly convinced that I am not alone in my coin hunting ventures around Austin. At some banks where I've solicited coinage, I've received CWRs that are nothing but zinc zinc zinc. Once I even came across a batch that was labeled. This happened to me with half dollars as well twice. I haven't met face to face anyone in my area who does coin roll hunting, but from select pieces of evidence in circulation, I'm pretty convinced that there are others out there. To avoid this, I rarely ever go to banks that offer CWRs anymore; my main buy bank is Wells Fargo, because Brinks pools all the coinage from multiple areas together so I get a better, more representative sample of the present copper-to-zinc ratio. The problem with CWRs is that they're either really good or really bad. They are either stocked with old coinage from some elderly person's coin jar from the 1960s, or they're skunks amassed by a like-minded coin roll hunter in my area. It's too big of a gamble to be worth it.

So, in conclusion, I recommend only purchasing from banks that give out BWRs in order to get a truly representative sample of the coinage in your general region. At least if you feel like your efforts are conflicting with another hunter in your area; if you're having immense success with CWRs and bags, then you should resume your present hunting strategies.

I hand sort and I agree with your statement. I realize that I may be missing out on older coins by not asking for CWR, but most of the CWR I have received over the last couple of years are filled with disgusting garbage. My favorite is the short black hairs I tend to find in CWR. I tell myself they are dog or cat hairs...

So I live in Southeast Georgia near the coast, but I also spent 6 months earlier in the year in Atlanta. In the small coastal towns I have poor luck, banks are always telling me someone else is getting to the pennies, and sometimes I get 3 Brinks boxes and open them up and find CWRs with nothing but zinc. I have much better luck in Atlanta, where they seemed to need and get pennies at a much faster rate, and therefore don't stockpile pennies that have been sucked dry of any copper. I'm sure that Atlanta probably has many people doing the same thing I'm doing, but their rate of handing out and getting pennies is so fast that I don't come across "used" pennies.