The 2015 Vancouver Vacation Project

[hammerrob]

I've switched over this week to a new thread. Vacation time is only 5 months away and we've selected the location: Vancouver.

For anyone who might be interested, I started this topic last year, the original thread is here:

http://www.realcent.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=29255

Here's what this is all about:

Two years ago I bought a CTU for $135 ... and handsorting pennies just didn't have the same attraction anymore. It would have been great if I was finding collectibles more often, but after sorting over 100,000 pennies I found an Indian Head Cent, a few wide AM cents, a lot of mostly 1940s and 50s wheat cents, and always about 30% copper. What was more fun than sorting the pennies was seeing what was on the TD Bank magnet when I dumped. Lots of foreign coins, especially Canadian.

So I changed the game up. Every Friday my son and I sort 2 rolls each of pennies, nickels and dimes. We're trying to fill out a Dansco Roosevelt dime and Jefferson Nickel book. Every Saturday we dump the coins and clean up the magnet for them. In 2015 we're taking a vacation to Vancouver and hopefully we can buy a nice dinner out with the coins we've accumulated.

[hammerrob]

This week the sorting was good ... second consecutive week scoring a War Nickel! The magnet at TD Bank was so packed with foreign coins (and button batteries) that many of the prior users coins were still stuck in the chute. After I cleaned off the magnet over $8 in US ran through the sorter for me. There was over 30 Indian Rupees that made up most of the blockage.

Fun Facts: Total Indian Rupees to date: 103.35 More fun facts ... total value at current exchange rates is about $1.67.

Fun Facts 2: Total US take (when crazy things happen like prior dumps stuck in the machine, or just US left in the reject bin) $20.90

Sorting take: 18 cents / 18% , incl 1946 ........ Nickels - 1943 P War Nickel

Penny Arcade take: $.96 Canadian, 1.26 Euros, Mexico 2 Pesos, India 34.5 Rupees, US $8.27

Find of Week (two consecutive weeks of War Nickels, so last weeks 42P and one of this weeks Indian Rupees):

[hammerrob]

On my usual TD Bank visit this week there was nothing on the magnet. My son and I were bummed out. As luck would have it, when we got home the wife sent us back out to the grocery store, which is right next to another branch!

Fun Fact: Found a 2009P nickel sorting, the first 2009 nickel I've found. The only post-1953 nickels I'm missing now are 2009D and 2014D (and I guess both 2015 at this point).

Sorting take: 29 cents / 29% , incl 1956D, 71S, and Canada 1999 ........ Nickels - 2014 P

Penny Arcade take: $.70 Canadian, 5 Eurocents, Costa Rica 50 Colones, India 50 Paise, Cayman Islands 1 cent.

Find of Week (Nothing this week was very attractive, so we're going to go with last week's 1 Euro):

[plus1hdcp]

What a good idea and great way to keep your son involved. I enjoy reading your posts and keep up the search.

[Numis Pam]

This is going to be a fun thread to follow! Thanks!

[hammerrob]

Not a bad week, sorting was was much better for us than the Penny Arcade.

Fun Fact: Mexican Pesos found so far: 113.60 .. about $7.65 USD

Fun Fact2: Canadian $ found so far: $123.46

Sorting take: 48 cents / 48% , incl 1957D ........ Nickels - 1944P War Nickel, this is I think the 3rd War Nickel found in the past 4 weeks, which is crazy good luck!

Penny Arcade take: $.46 Canadian, 4 Eurocents, Guatamala 5 Centavos, Great Britain 4 Pennies

Find of Week (the Guatamala 5 Centavos):

[hammerrob]

This week lots of variety, but again we didn't do too well on Canadian.

Fun Fact: French Francs found so far 20.5 (not bad for a currency demonitized for over 15 years now)

Sorting take: 29 cents / 29% , incl 1944, Canadian 91 ........ Nickels - 1946 released back into the wild

Penny Arcade take: $.47 Canadian, 6 Eurocents, Georgia 2 tetri, GB 1 penny, 4 Chinese yuan, 1 French Franc - 1961, 1 Indian Rupee, Mexico 6.5 Pesos, 11 Cents US

Find of Week (Republic of Georgia, 2 Tetri - had to look this one up to find out it was 'tetri'):

[hammerrob]

A repeat of last week ...lots of variety, but we didn't do too well on Canadian.

Fun Fact: Found some Equador coins today .. we find these coins fairly regularly, which is weird because I never in my life have heard someone say they are from Equador, or were going on a trip to Equador. So far we've found $1.95 centavos. We've also found 1,001 Sucre (sounds like alot, but only 2 coins), which was the monetary unit in Equador before 2000. Today, the US dollar is legal tender in Equador! Nothing like the internet to research obscure information.

Sorting take: 21 cents / 21%, also found a Canada 2010 penny ........ Nickels - 1983 Canada

Penny Arcade take: $.45 Canadian, 1943 Steel Cent, 2 Eurocents, 15 Equador Centavos, Cayman Islands 10 cents, Netherland Antilles 85 cents, United Arab Emerates 1 dirham (another one we had to look up this week)

Find of Week (We're gong to go with Netherlands Antilles 25 cents - but we'll save the UAE coin for a future slow week):

[hammerrob]

Good sorting this week, but another sub-par week for Canadian. The highlight this week was our fourth War Nickel in seven weeks. What are the odds? We still haven't found a 2009 D!

Fun Fact: This week we're counting the Chinese coin take. So far we've found 4 Yuan and 31 Jiao ... which all together is worth about 96 cents.

Sorting take: 32 cents / 32% ........ Nickels - 1939, 1945P War Nickel

Penny Arcade take: $.35 Canadian, India 1 Rupee, Mexico 1 Peso

Find of Week (so this was disappointing .. 1939 Nickel which would be in great condition if wasn't scraped up. My son kept saying it was a 1939, but it was in such good shape I couldn't believe it!):

[plus1hdcp]

It makes you wonder how the 39 got so marred!

[hammerrob]

Got really busy this week and forgot to post for last weekend. It was another good sorting week, but we hit rock bottom at the Penny Arcade ... skunked ... nothing.

Sorting take: 29 cents / 29% including 1937, 51 and 58 wheats, 1973 Canada

Penny Arcade take: $.00 Canadian

Find of Week (not much choice here, but any pre-1940 penny is rare enough for us!):

[hammerrob]

Our luck finally changed at the Penny Arcade ... all around a good week!.

Sorting take: 32 cents / 32% including 1981 Canadian .... Nickels 47 & 47S, but we already had both.

Penny Arcade take: $2.45 Canadian, Aruba 25 Cents, Cost Rica 1 Colon, 29 Eurocents, Ecuador 25 Centavos, India 1 Rupee, 1 Steel Cent 1943, 1 Golf Ball Marker

Find of Week: We're going with the Costa Rica 1 Colon. Not 100% positive, but I don't think we've found one from Cost Rica before...

[hammerrob]

We took an early trip to the bank this week since we will be away this weekend. Weekends seem to be the better time to go since I think more people are putting change in the machines, but we still did OK.

Sorting take: 18 cents / 18% including 1947D and 1995 Canadian .... Nickels - Columbia 50 Pesos (pretty unusual sorting find) .... Dimes - Canada 2005

Penny Arcade take: $.21 Canadian, Mexico 2 Pesos, Dominican Republic 25 Centavos, 5 Eurocents, Ecuador 10 Centavos

Find of Week: We're going with the United Arab Emerates 1 dirham we found a couple of weeks ago ...

[hammerrob]

Off schedule again this week since the kids are off of school. Not much of a sorting week, but we had a great week at the Penny Arcade for a change.

Fun Fact: Total Canadian $135.91

Sorting take: 20 cents / 20% ........ Nickels - 1940 nothing rare, but in awesome shape, photo below

Penny Arcade take: $8.41 Canadian, India 1 Rupee, Mexico 2 Peso, Eurocents, Brazil 50 Centavos, Paraguay 1000 Guarani, 1943 Steel Cent

Find of Week (primo condition 1940 Nickel, from a collection previously, I think):

[plus1hdcp]

You are doing great with all the Canadian coinage. I take it you live in a northern / border state. Keep it up.

[hammerrob]

You are doing great with all the Canadian coinage. I take it you live in a northern / border state. Keep it up.

Well, in NJ, which I guess is reasonably close to Canada. Success really is due to being able access the magnet on the coin sorter at TD Bank. Everyone who dumps change and happens to have Canadian mixed in, the magnet grabs all that. This week there was 2-2 Dollar coins, 2-1 Dollar coins, and 8 quarters from Canada stuck to the magnet (along with some dimes/nickels). The 2 and 1 dollar coins add up fast. My son is always psyched when we find them!

[hammerrob]

Finally, a 2009-D Nickel! We've probably found at least 5 silver war nickels, but this is the first 2009-D! Excellent week all-around.

Fun Fact: We found a few Philippine Pesos this week, in total we've found 7 Pesos and 80 Sentimos. Since each Peso is worth just over 2 cents US, that's about 15 cents total. And we think our cents are worthless!

Sorting take: 28 cents / 28% including 54D, 57D, Canada 1997 ........ Nickels - 1940, 55D, 57, 58D, all sent back into the wild

Penny Arcade take: $3.11 Canadian, India 9 Rupees, Philippines 5 Peso, 8 Eurocents, Honduras 20 Centavos, Germany 8 Pfennig, GB 4 Pennies, US 25 Cents

Find of Week (Honduras 20 Centavos, I think this is the first one we've found from Honduras .. sorry for the crappy photos, we're not doing a good job of holding the phone still when we take these!):

[hammerrob]

Well, the last two weeks were really good, so we were due for a crappy week - and we got one!

Sorting take: 22 cents / 22%

Penny Arcade take: $0 Canadian, GB 10 Pence, New Zealand 50 Cents

Find of Week (We're going to go with the New Zealand 50 cents, mostly for the nice image of the ship):

[hammerrob]

Pretty good week, nice bounce-back from last week.

Fun Fact: Less than 2 months to go, and we have $140.92 Canadian

Sorting take: 0 cents / 0% got two fresh rolls of 2014s, blah ........ Nickels - 1940-D, which we didn't have yet! Also a 1947 which went back to the wild.

Penny Arcade take: $1.90 Canadian, Mexico 1 Peso, Ghana 30 Pesewas, 6 Eurocents, China 5 Jiao, Catholic token

Find of Week (Ghana 20 Centavos, this one's from Africa, Guyana is in South America ... I had to look it up because I couldn't remember):

[hammerrob]

Better sorting this week, but dissappointing Canadian take.

Sorting take: 25 cents / 25% includes 1970S (red) and 1956D ..... Nickels, upgraded to a nicer 1985P for our collection.

Penny Arcade take: $.40 Canadian, Mexico 2 Peso, Latvia 1 Santims, India 2 Rupee, Barbados 10 Cents, Great Britain 3 Pennies, US 10 Cents

Find of Week (Latvia 1 Santims; Latvia went to the Euro on 1/1/14):

[hammerrob]

A great week all-around!

Sorting take: 26 cents / 26% includes 1971S and 1942 ..... Nickels: 59, 47D, 46D, 47 (all sent back out into the wild), Chile 10 Pesos (wierd to find sorting)

Penny Arcade take: $3.76 Canadian, Mexico 6 Pesos, China 1 Yuan, Great Britain 2 Pennies & 10 Pence, Jamaica 1 Dollar, Cayman Islands 1 Cent, 14 Eurocents, Thailand 1 Bhat, Ecuador 10 centavos

Find of Week (Canada 1952 Nickel, pretty decent shape ... we'd try to Ebay if it weren't for the big obverse scratch):

[plus1hdcp]

Should be getting close to the vacation date, good luck in the next couple of penny arcade visits.

[hobo finds]

Check the Penny Arcade machines when you are in Canada!

[hammerrob]

Only 5 more weeks to go. I'll have plenty of coins for the Canadaian Penny Arcade machines. It must be a different game in Canada ... no convenient magnet grabbing all the steel coins for you!

[hammerrob]

Not much of a sorting week, and the Penny Arcade was little light on Canadian, but we did get an interesting variety of other foreign.

Sorting take: 16 cents / 16% includes 1969S and Canada 72 ..... Nickels: Ecuador 5 Centavos (like last week, another wierd to find sorting)

Penny Arcade take: $.55 Canadian, 13 Eurocents, India 3 Rupees, Kenya 1 Shilling, Costa Rica 5 Colones, Dominican Republic 25 Centavos

Find of Week (Sorry for the blurry photos again! Dominican Republic 25 Centavos):