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I have been handsorting pennies/one cent coins for a very long time now. I just crossed over the $10,000fv mark and in general I am very happy how I have spent my spare time. I come home from a hard day of work and sorting a box or two per night helps me wind down.

But I have been reading that Ryedale makes a machine that will do all the hardwork for you. So that got me thinking and ultimately doing me research.

I recently sold my first lot of $100fv copper pennies on ebay. After fees and shipping I netted a profit of $32.

My average yield is about 74% zincs/other 25% coppers 1% wheats. Drawing that out the $10,000fv I have sorted would look as such:

$7400 Zincs (Returned)
$2500 Coppers (Sold on Ebay)
$100 Wheats (Kept)

IF $100Fv yields a $32 profit then $2500 would yield an $800 profit+/-

This does not take into account the manual labor/time/gas...etc.

I have read articles stating that Ryedal penny sorters have sorted upwards of over 1 million coins. $10,000 fv= 1 million coins. At $500+/- the ryedale represent a pretty sizeable upfront investment.

If I were to take $500 of my handsorted ebay profits and invest them into a Ryedale would it be a worthwhile investment.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Metal Monkey

Sometimes you can buy one used for under $300. 2 million plus ran through one isn't uncommon. There are some parts that wear out but are inexpensive to replace.

A new one will retain 60-70% of its initial purchase price. A used one will retain 70-80% of its purchase price.

You can run 2 boxes in less than 20 minutes. Compare that to the time it takes you to hand sort the same amount.

MetalMonkey1980 wrote: I am very happy how I have spent my spare time. I come home from a hard day of work and sorting a box or two per night helps me wind down.

A Ryedale is loud and you will need a man cave to use it . If hand sorting helps you wind down stick with it. My son Franklin has for the lack of a better word has autism sorts coins to keep calm but only likes pulling S mints, wheats, odd coins and Canadians and when he done into the Ryedale they go. So if your happy hand sorting I would stick with it.

I have put over $20K thru my Rydale in the past year with few problems. Bent coins are the worst but that isn't the Rydale's fault.
I like that the Rydale eliminates the zincs and I only have to sort thru the copper for the wheats and others I pick out. Then the copper just goes into the "pile" or some gets sold if I need some cash.

If you are going to sort $10,000 in pennies anyway.. the Ryedale is definitely a good investment. Years ago I turned profits from hand sorting into my first Ryedale. Of course back then eBay prices for copper were higher and Ryedales were cheaper. My only regret was that I did not get the machine earlier. If you value your time at $10 an hour and figure the machine will save you about 1 hour per box over handsorting, your breakeven would be 50 boxes. If you consider the remaining value of the used machine your breakeven is only 20 boxes. And now you have the start of an equipment base that will allow you to sort fast and play with the big boys if that is your desire.

Ramping up from $10k over a long time to $10k a month presents several new challenges. The Ryedale doesn't do "all the hard work." If you can't get your cents in bags you have to liberate them from the rolls.. something I am sure you are already familiar with as a hand sorter. But cracking out 1 or 2 boxes a night is a lot different than shelling 100 boxes of pennies a week.. and the rollcracker 1000 is prohibitively expensive.

Sourcing the pennies can be a challenge. A few boxes here and there are easy.. large quantities on a regular basis is considerably more difficult.

Dumping the zincs can become a logistical nightmare. A few boxes every week are easy.. Thousands of dollars in zinc every week will get you noticed by those tight fisted banksters. Do you have several lobby machines you can dump at, do you have banks that will take them by the bag, or do you have to roll your returns? Even members that use the lobby machines have been cut off when they tried to press the volume up a bit too much. You have to spread your dumps around.

The market for coppers is still thin. When you try to ramp up the volume you will notice the prices dropping. If the price gets too attractive everybody with a few tons laying around jumps on it to move a little.. and new guys see that price and decide to buy their own Ryedales.

Bottom line.. the Ryedale is an excellent investment.. one of my favorite machines.. and I have quite a hoard of machines.

HoardCopperByTheTon wrote:Sourcing the pennies can be a challenge. A few boxes here and there are easy.. large quantities on a regular basis is considerably more difficult.

Dumping the zincs can become a logistical nightmare.

This is exactly what stops me from getting a Ryedale. The bank branches I visit are happy to give up one box at a time, but I carefully spread my requests out over several branches over several days. My guess is if I ask for more (as a lowly "free checking" customer) they'll conjure up some "policy" that states they can't sell me pennies anymore. So I tread lightly. It's ironic that the tellers that give me the most dirty looks are males - guess they aren't up for walking to the vault and carrying a 'heavy' box back to their post. Gals don't seem to mind at all... go figure!?

Then again I'm a hand sorter who is in it for stacking copper, not selling it. And I love finding the oldies and rare coins. Maybe that makes a difference in my decision?

I wonder if I can call several of these armored truck companies that deal in coinage and cash logistics and see how much would fit on one truck and see if they will deliver to my house or business. Then I can see how much they will deliver and also if they will pick up my "return" zinc coins. If I could get Brinks, Garda, Loomis and Wells fargo to each make one delivery per week dropping off and picking up then I could theoretically be in business. Of course if you can process 15000 coins per hour...it would take just shy of 67 hours to process $10,000fv non-stop...not accounting for unrolling...or sorting out wheats....I wonder how big you would have to go in order to be one of the big boys....do they sell industrial sizes sorters that are bigger faster and more accurate than the ryedale...how does one get to Portland Mint scale?

You actually can get them to deliver to your business if you are the business owner and it is in the right area. For large amounts of coin they will have to use the bigger truck.. and that of course is another extra charge. If you exceed the contracted on-premise time.. that is another extra charge. A regular daily contract is generally a better deal than weekly or one time, but still significantly more than you are going to net from the operation. Then there are the bank fees for where you are having them ferry the pennies back and forth from. Oh, and you will probably need some high speed counting machines to bag all those coins.

How much money do you want to lose?

You can still make some money with the Ryedale.. but there are new challenges at each level you step up to. Remember.. TANSTAAFL.

Chuck

If you would come to a get together I will show you how to get a free lunch.

Have you seen the cost of travel lately.. it's gettin' ta where a feller can't go anywhere. Not exactly free.

I agree with HCBTT, cultivating your sources for your coins takes some leg work and determination. I hand sorted until I was able to make a good trade for the ryedale. Upon recieving your ryedale you will realize what you thought was a great amount of coinage from your sources is not that much and you will be back on the road looking for new ones. Treating your dump bank like it is royalty is one of the key factors in the program. Good luck, but get the ryedale ASAP!

There might be a few used ones from Canada coming onto the market.

T-minus 5 days before consumers can no longer withdraw them pennies from the banks. Although they might simply switch over to nickel duty.

ZenOps wrote:There might be a few used ones from Canada coming onto the market.

T-minus 5 days before consumers can no longer withdraw them pennies from the banks. Although they might simply switch over to nickel duty.

Can you sort nickels with a ryedale? I thought they could only do pennies and dimes...

scyther wrote:Can you sort nickels with a ryedale? I thought they could only do pennies and dimes...

Nickels will run through it, but it won't reliably pick out war nickels. In Canada, it works well for sorting out the .999 from the steel and Cu.

ZenOps wrote:There might be a few used ones from Canada coming onto the market.

T-minus 5 days before consumers can no longer withdraw them pennies from the banks. Although they might simply switch over to nickel duty.

As it gets closer I wonder if the banks would rather have you get them than them pay to send them off! If you could buy lots of coin this might be the time!

scyther wrote:

ZenOps wrote:There might be a few used ones from Canada coming onto the market.

T-minus 5 days before consumers can no longer withdraw them pennies from the banks. Although they might simply switch over to nickel duty.

Can you sort nickels with a ryedale? I thought they could only do pennies and dimes...

From last year-- http://www.realcent.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9501 We tried that too.

Just tried it. Off the shelf Ryedale works with UK New pennies in a Ryedale you put a test coin in and it sort from that. So if it fits down the shoot it works. See http://www.realcent.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9083



First Issued 15 February 1971
Specifications
Diameter 20.3mm
Weight 3.56g
Thickness
Bronze: 1.52mm
Copper-plated steel: 1.65mm
Composition Bronze (97% copper, 2.5% zinc, 0.5% tin) - until September 1992
Copper-plated steel - since September 1992
Obverse Designers Portrait of Her Majesty the Queen
1971-1984 Arnold Machin
1985-1997 - Raphael Maklouf
1998 to date - Ian Rank-Broadley FRBS
Reverse
Designers 1971-2008 - Christopher Ironside
2008 - Matthew Dent
Edge Plain
Background Information

The United Kingdom 1p coin was one of three new coins introduced into general circulation on the 15 February 1971 when the United Kingdom adopted a new decimal currency system. The other two new coins were the 1/2p and 2p coins.

To avoid confusion between the old and new coinage all three coins had the word 'NEW' incorporated into the reverse design. This was later removed in 1982.

The first copper-plated steel 1p coins were struck in 1992. The reason for this change was the increase in the price of metals on the world markets. The coins have a mild steel core and are electroplated with copper - consequently they are magnetic.

The 1p coin is legal tender for amounts up to 20p.