Realcent.org

Today I reached a penny sorting milestone - 1/2 million coins sorted!! It took two years of hand-sorting about two boxes per week. I thought I would share some of my sorting stats with the rest of the hand-sorters here.

500,000 pennies sorted (105 boxes and the rest in CWRs - lots of CWRs)
- 17.54% copper percentage (1959-1982)
- 2 Indian head pennies
- 1,871 total wheat cents found
- 3 wheat cents from 1909 including a V.D.B but no 'S' mint marks
- 21 wheat cents from the teens
- 33 wheat cents from the 1920's
- 72 wheat cents from the 1930's
- 633 wheat cents from the 1940's including four steel cents
- 1,096 wheat cents from the 1950's
- 3 plastic pennies
- 95 dimes (but no silver)
- 1 token
- 488 Canada (376 copper and 112 non copper). The Canadian cents include one George V and 12 George VI.
- 57 total worldwide coins from Austria (1), Bahamas (4), Barbados (1), Belgium (1), China (1), France (3), Germany (8), Great Britain (6), Ireland (3), Italy (3), Lebanon (2), Mexico (4), Netherlands (1), Norway (1), Panama (3), Philippines (1), South Korea (2), Spain (3), Sweden (2), Taiwan (4), Trinidad & Tobago (1), and Zambia (2).

I also decided to sort the zincs in the latest box from today to see how it compares to when I first started two years ago. This box was under 15% copper and I have been averaging 17% in recent weeks so the zinc breakdown may be slightly off from a typical box for me but it is close.
- 1982 Memorial cents (27). This was more than the 21 copper 1982's in the box. I usually find more zinc than copper 1982's.
- 1983-2008 Memorial (1,448). That is 59% of the box and 69.6% of the total zinc cents. Two years ago I would get at least 1,700 per box.
- 2009 Lincoln Anniversary (38). This is just under what I was getting two years ago.
- 2010-2013 Shields (606). That's a big increase over the 200 or so that I would see two years ago.

The breakdown by reverse design for the box is 1,846 Memorial (74%) and 654 non-Memorial (26%). That's a noticeable change from 89% Memorial vs. 11% non-Memorial from two years ago. It's not to the point where I would do a first pass sort by reverse design to weed out all the zinc shields but that day may come in a few more years. The metal breakdown of the 1,846 Memorial cents was 371 copper (20%) and 1,475 zinc (80%) compared to 27% copper vs. 73% zinc two years ago.

congrats !

and I love stats !

definitely more odd foreign than I ever got

thanks for sharing

That is a lot for hand sorting!

congrats on the milestone.

Man, that's a lot of hand sorting!

After a year I couldn't do it anymore, too slow.

Good for you, WTG!

Wow!!! Makes me wish I had taken the time for more detailed stats.... thanks for sharing.

Very detailed Stats I like how you broke down the wheats by year and the foreigns by the country etc. All really great info!

Keeping stats is lots of fun and seeing if you can recognize and find trends is even better. With info like this, I might have to revise my spreadsheet and add a few more columns.

And Congratulations....that is some dedicated hand sorting

I salute you
I don't know how you guys can hand sort. I guess my patience level isn't up to snuff compared to you.

Congrats! And nice work! Thanks for sharing, I love all the stats!

Congrats,

Maybe we should start a half million club or something.

Impressive stats by the way.

Cheers,

Look for the copper 2009's I think some have been found by members here.

http://lincolncentresource.com/2009_Lincoln_Cents.html


viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18536

Congrats on reaching the half million.
i hit mine about a month ago. definitely a lot of coins. look for the 2009 errors. they are there.
go for 1 million!!!!

Thanks everyone. It has been a fun hobby. Keeping the stats helps make it more interesting. The mix of coins I have found from various countries are primarily from CWRs which I get almost as often as boxes. I wonder if being located near Los Angeles also has something to do with the variety of foreign coins I find.

Congratulations. Interesting stats.

Great stats and sorting!! Keep it up

Very cool. I almost feel guilty reading your stats without doing any of the work.

I have been wondering lately about percentage of copper to zinc. Thanks!

The first 2 boxes I sorted about 6 yrs ago ran 33%. It has steadily dropped since then.

Very impressive stats! Good work!!!

Thats crazy, props to you my friend, hopefully I can get there someday

Major Gratz! May have to count what I have sorted to see how close I am to the 1/2 mil club. But no stats, to much work. Great accomplishment. Keeps the rest of us motivated.