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What have you found to be the best way to tear into a roll of machine wrapped pennies?

Bang them against the edge of the table? bottle opener? Which of you toss them in the fireplace then scrap them out in the morning?

I've got my Ryedale coming tomorrow and I've got about 1000 rolls to feed through it this weekend!

So far I've found banging them on the counter to be the most efficient practice... What do you think?

Any tips or tricks?

Hoardcopperbytheton, you have a machine for everything, don't you!

Ryedale posted somewhere a video of using a small pocket knife. It may be a you tube post. I found that most effective. At first it looks like its more tedious and time consuming, but once you get the hang of it, it goes fast and works well.

I just use my hands. Just rip the paper near both ends, peel it open about half way, put some pressure on the middle to make most of the coins fall out, then push out whatever coins are still on the ends of the roll with your fingers. The knife method may be faster once you get used to it. I don't think banging them on the table would be a good idea, but to each his own...

They're called "shotgun" rolls, right?

scyther wrote:I just use my hands. Just rip the paper near both ends, peel it open about half way, put some pressure on the middle to make most of the coins fall out, then push out whatever coins are still on the ends of the roll with your fingers. The knife method may be faster once you get used to it. I don't think banging them on the table would be a good idea, but to each his own...

I get a friend to help. I do give him most of my wheaties since he helps me open them.

We do not have the option of bags of coin at my home, located 50 miles away from nowhere, so all my hand-sorting, which is to say all of my sorting, is done with rolls. Ditto with the dump market, which demands rolls only be returned. At one time years ago I destroyed the shotgun rolls to get them open quickly, but eventually tired of paying even a portion of the excess value of one piece of discovered copper for a new wrapper, so I developed means to re-use the wrappers.

I generally use something on the order of a flat, vane-type screwdriver, smaller blade, with edges rounded (if the edge of the blade is sharp, it tends to puncture the wrapper). I work the blade under the curl of the crimp at one end, alternately poking and prying upward in various adjacent spots until the tight roll of the crimp starts to unravel up and away from the stack of cents. I then work my way around the inside of the circumference, lightly prying upward to continue the unraveling of the crimp, until the entire crimp is undone and open.

I next fetch a dowel rod of roughly 5/8" diameter, or just under the diameter of the cents, and lightly gripping the roll with one hand, push the stack of cents from the still-crimped end opposite of my attentions thus far. If the wrapper encircles the stack of cents with a normal amount of pressure, it is possible to extrude the stack from the open end with the carefully-applied pressure from the dowel rod. If the wrapper grips the stack too tightly, a bit of water on the palm and fingers of the gripping hand produces more friction against the wrapper without more gripping pressure (which tends to further fight the willingness of the stack to move).

The resulting empty wrapper can be re-loaded with appropriately segregated cents for storage or dumping. I generally find that it is wise to add a short stack of 10 to 25 cents first, then ramming these home, musket-style, seating them at the factory-crimped end, before adding the balance of the stack to make up a full new roll. The open end can be folded back to some semblance of a closed end. Depending upon the centering of the original roll (and the number of squat, year 2000 cents there are), there may or may not be enough paper wrapper extending beyond the stack to permit a refold to approach the certainty of, say, that of a standard flat wrapper. Too little excess for folding - more a problem when working with shotgun rolls of nickels - leaves a sloppy, partially unfurling result which requires a strip of tape to remedy - and again, I don't like to give up even a portion of the value of a single CU cent!

At one time I unfurled both ends of the shotgun roll, eliminating the work with the dowel, and even now, if the stack contains a particularly damaged example in its contents, the normal smooth circumference of a cent degraded into an angry jagged ring, it may not be possible to extrude the stack without damage to the wrapper. An unfurled wrapper is certainly easier to store in quantity, if that is deemed a desirable end, but then in order to reuse the completely unfurled wrapper I have to fetch out my banker's tray to be able to re-roll a new stack. And now both ends will bear the less-dependable refolding scheme, doubling the chance that I might have to employ tape to really secure it.

-John-

Small bent nose pliars or needle nose.

Grab the roll in your fist.

Grap the crimp ring and pull the whole thing off in one motion on bottom of fist.

Use the pointy end of pliars still holding ring to push coins on top of fist by thumb out. A quick jerk downward slides the rest out.

Drop both empty wrapper and ring into trash, grab another roll.

LongJohnCopper wrote:We do not have....it.

-John-

Wow, this sounds like a lot of work. Their has to be a better way. I know that their are a few machines that wrap coins for you. I have access to one of those. However, you would have to buy rolls and the machine itself which defeats your goal of not paying to dump your coins.

FatherRosado wrote:

LongJohnCopper wrote:We do not have....it.

-John-

Wow, this sounds like a lot of work. Their has to be a better way. I know that their are a few machines that wrap coins for you. I have access to one of those. However, you would have to buy rolls and the machine itself which defeats your goal of not paying to dump your coins.

Father, yes, after all, it's just a hobby for me, and my approach to my hobby might not align with the intent, or the understanding, of other people posting here (and is almost certainly positioned well outside of the general zeitgeist!). In general, this is a wonderfully supporting group of people here who have taught me much over the years and I hope to be able to pipe up now and then to reciprocate in some small measure, even if in only an occasional offhand remark or dropped concept.

-John-

You have an extreme amount of patience, John. Doesn't matter how big the stack gets as long as you enjoy the journey your coming out on top!

zKott wrote:Hoardcopperbytheton, you have a machine for everything, don't you!

I wish. Unfortunately Santa has not brought me the RollCracker 1000 yet.. even though I ask every year.. and I been good.

That machine will open 100 rolls per minute. You have to be a serious sorter to consider putting 3 quarters of a ton of machine on the floor of your penny processing center.

OP asked what is the best way.. While the RollCracker 1000 is probably one of the best ways.. at over $10k it is a little pricey for most of our budgets. I just crack my rolls like eggs on the edge of my 1/4" plate steel workbench.

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Pennies come in rolls? I buy in bags and dump in a DaLaRue lobby machine. I don't know what a roll of pennies look like.