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I consider my penny sorting hobby/addiction to be roughly analogous to being a copper miner. That said, I struck a nice vein of ore today! Usually I expect the bigger copper percentages to come in CWRs, but today I had some Brinks rolled pennies that contained a high percentage of CU. I sorted $5 worth of pennies and ended up with 197 CU Lincoln Memorials, plus 4 wheats and 3 Canadian coppers. That's just about 40% copper. The best single roll had 43 coppers in it. I usually average around 28% overall, so this is well above my usual average.

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

Hand sorted $5 worth of machine-wrapped rolls today and had exceptional numbers. I got 264 CU pennies (53%)! plus 2 wheats and 2 Canadian CU. There were a few individual rolls that were especially rich in copper. Two of the rolls contained 47 CU pennies, almost all of which were shiny 1979 cents. Another roll contained 44 CU pennies. Occasionally I get CWR rolls that are similarly rich in copper, but this is about the best numbers I've ever had from bank-wrapped rolls.

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

I keep waiting for the big cwr payoff, but so far the String boxes have yielded slightly better in the cu. Also, more wheats & indians.

Can't complain about the dimes in customer rolls, though.

OK this is getting weird, but a good kind of weird! Handsorted $5 of machine wrapped rolls from a completely different bank, and ended up with a similar rich vein. I ended up with 259 (52%) CU pennies, plus 1 wheat and 2 Canadian coppers. And once again the majority of the CU coins were shiny 1979 pennies. I had an individual roll that yielded 47 CU pennies and two that yielded 43 CU pennies. I can't imagine how such a concentrated amount of 1979 pennies ended up going into two completely different boxes, and to two completely different banks. Any theories? As I said before, I wouldn't be so surprised to see something like this happen with CWR rolls, but it's very rare with bank rolled pennies. I sure hope this continues, because it's been double the percentage I usually get!

Quick, mortgage the homestead and go buy every box in the branches around you!

I handsorted another $5 worth of pennies from the same batch that yielded such great results, and the results were the best yet! The $5 yielded 328 CU pennies (65%) plus 4 Canadian CU pennies and 1 wheat. And yes, once again, the 1972 penny made up the majority of the coins. I had one roll that was fully copper, and other rolls that contained 44, 45, and 47 CU pennies. I still can't figure out why such high percentages ended up in bank rolled coins, but I ain't complainin'!

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

Today I found the third member of my Indian tribe. He was a little beat up, so the date wasn't readily discernible. Before he showed up, I had the feeling that this bunch of pennies would yield something rare. I love getting coins for free that are over 100 yrs. old!

Getting pretty close to the 1000 lb. club, overall- won't be long.

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

A first for me today, and I suspect it might be my most valuable find while penny roll searching. At first I thought it was an Indian Head, but after closer inspection I realized it was not. What it was, was an 1863 Civil War token with Army and Navy on the back. The coin is in really good shape for its age. (MUch better than any of the 3 Indians I've found). I did some quick checking, and saw a similar coin on e-bay for $32. Apparently these coins are private issues. Does anyone else have any info on these coins?

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

Outstanding find, would appreciate a picture when you get a chance.

plus1hdcp wrote:Outstanding find, would appreciate a picture when you get a chance.

Agree, agree! Picture, picture!

Great find! I think I have a reference book in my library for them. Show us a picture and I can look it up.

Would love to post a pic for you guys, but alas the batteries in my camera are dead. Maybe tomorrow.

Here's a pic of one I found online.

My Indian tribe grew by one member today. It increased from 3 to 4. Today's was a 1903 and it was in decent condition. Ahh, the thrill of the hunt!

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

The tribe just grew from 4 to 5! Came from a bank roll. It was a 1906 in pretty decent shape. Finds like this help to keep the motivation strong!

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

Got an very nice yield from a handsorted $5 batch of CRWs. A total of 279 CU cents (55.8%) with a Canadian CU and a wheatie to boot. Gotta love those CRWs!

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

Yeah, I've had some amazing finds from CWRs. Best is $11.5" in nearly all wheats. Still no Indians, grats on your finds!

CWR rolls can be really rich in CU at times, but today I struck a pretty rich vein in a batch of commercially wrapped rolls. Out of 500 pennies, I had 218 CU pennies, one wheat and one Canadian. That's about 44% copper, which is a pretty good number for any rolls, but unusually rich for non-cwr rolls.

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

do the folks here chanting for a picture,disturbingly remind you of a guy in a strip club chanting- take it off!! realcent, the BEST penny-porn site on the web....

The copper gods continue to be kind! Another $5 batch of commercial rolls from a different bank yielded a total of 232 CU pennies (46.4%). And a wheatie too. I'm used to averaging somewhere around 25%, so these recent numbers have been bonanza grade. Hope it keeps up!

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

I consider myself a copper miner too! If you watch Gold Rush on the Discovery channel, you can see the similarities. Both hobbies rely upon having good machines (bulldozers and excavators vs. Ryedales and coin counters). The more and better the machines, the more you can process. I have an 18 gallon container that I put my raw pennies into that await the Ryedale for the upcoming weekend, and I consider that my unprocessed "ore". Both gold mining and penny hoarding have the weighing ritual after a "cleanup" (which is akin to a double sort for us penny hoarders). Both hobbies have their hiccups when machines break down, the funding goes dry, or the bank cuts you off, and when this happens you have to know what you're doing and get back to running fast!

In both hobbies, you just want the main money-making machine to run, run, run! (a washplant for gold miners and the Ryedale for us guys)

And both hobbies have the complete ghetto approach, which is hand panning for gold mining and hand sorting for pennies.

Struck some rich ore in some CWRs today. Handsorted $5 and it yielded a total of 270 CU pennies and 5 Canadian pennies for a total of 275! That comes to a gaudy 55%. Not too shabby at all!

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

I returned to the bank that I got the last good roll from to see if there were any more from that batch. I saw the same teller and she said she had another $5 left, which I grabbed. Good thing I did! This bunch yielded 288 CU pennies, which works out to 57.6%. I would call that a rich vein any day!

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!

I also got my best box in a while - an 1883 IH and over a 100 wheats, normally I'll get 15 or so a box. Maybe the economy is forcing more people to take their penny jars to the coin counter...

Just finished up a nice $25 box. I'm accustomed to averaging in the 25%-30% range on commercial boxes, so this box was way above the norm. This box yielded a total of 1096 regular CU pennies, plus 36 Canadian CU pennies and 4 wheaties. So that's 1133 keepers from the box which translates to 45.3%. Numbers like this wouldn't surprise me that much when talking about CWR rolls, but this could be some of the richest ore I've ever had from a commercial box.

Happy hunting to all my fellow copperheads!