Pennies are heavy!!

[TwoAndAHalfCents]

This week I picked up my very first box of pennies to sort. I found a nice Panama 1 cent piece in the first roll I opened and now I'm hooked. I haven't even opened the rest of the rolls. I already want more.

I stopped by an estate sale in town today advertised as a "hoarder home". Maybe they had some buckets of pennies hoarded away. No such luck. Just a house packed full of junk. But I did manage to find four canvas bank bags there. I paid a buck to get all four of them. When I picked up my box of pennies the other day, the teller could have given my $25 worth of rolls she had at her window but I had nothing to carry them in so I settled for a box. But now I am armed with a few canvas bank bags in case another situation like that comes up again.

Since I wasn't too far from the antique shops downtown I decided to drive over there to stroll around to see if i could score any good deals on junk silver coins. There weren't many coins being sold there. One guy had a few war nickels at $2.95 each and mercury dimes at $3.95 - sorry, not interested. So I gave up on the silver hunt but figured I would make one last stop at the bank down the street. Maybe someone brought grandpa's stash of old coins to the antique shops to sell, found that no one there deals with coins and decided to dump the coins at the bank to get rid of them. I walked to the bank thinking that I would get there and leave with my canvas bags filled with rolls of grandpa's old coins. A guy can dream a little, right?

At the bank, the teller says she has no rolls of pennies at her window. Neither does the teller next to her. But she asks how much I want and she would just go to the back and get it for me. I said I would take whatever she could get for me up to $100. After about five minutes she returns with another teller carrying boxes of pennies - four boxes total. So I wound up with $100 of pennies in boxes instead of grandpa's hoard all rolled up. Oh well, I will still gladly sort the boxes. Then it hit me. I'm standing in the bank lobby with four boxes of pennies. I had just walked a block from the antique shops downtown and I had parked quite a ways away from the shops because it's so busy around there on a Saturday afternoon. I had to walk four blocks with all those pennies. Not too hot today. Only 85 degrees. But walking four blocks carrying four boxes of pennies can sure make you work up a sweat. Those things are heavy. I kept telling myself "They're heavy because they're solid copper", "They're heavy because they're sold copper". I haven't opened the boxes yet but I sure hope I was right.

[theshoenlebens]

Nice story !
I would love to get my pennies in bags but have to settle for boxes. I'm averaging around 27 percent copper so I'm ok with that. I haven't found ant stuff besides pennies but I'm still hopefull it will happan soon.

[beauanderos]

Depending on what part of the country you live in, you were probably lugging anywhere from 29 to 32lbs under each arm

[merchoarder]

Good story. I hope you were right! Enjoy your searching!

[ed_vantage17]

I have a backpack just to lug them up the two fights of stairs to my apartment. Solid calf workout hauling 60 lbs on one's back. When I move, my next place is going to be on the first floor or serviced by an elevator.

[reddirtcoins]

Wow, love the story! Hang in there. Lol you never know what you're going to find and most of all you're that much more ahead then everyone else.
Welcome !!! To the bright side!

[twentybux]

Welcome to the addiction to which there is no cure for. Just wait until the day you are hauling away a cart and the new teller asks the veteran tellers why the second armored truck shows up to pick up what the first truck dropped off only one hour ago.

[Morsecode]

Keep one of those canvas bags in the car at all times. Never know when you'll run across a teller looking to unload 100 rolls.

That was some trek with 4 boxes. Three is my limit.

[TwoAndAHalfCents]

Moving up to a cart? I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. If I pick up too many I'll need to find a way to dump a ton of zincs!!

[fansubs_ca]

Those things are heavy.

Always walk into the bank with 2 bags, that way you distribute your load evenly on both
sides. When I want to do serious pick ups I'll go with 2 quadrupled baged plastic handle
bags (so 8 bags). You'ld be amazed how much weight you can heft in plastic when it's
quadruple baged.

Of course instead of hauling them to a car I haul them to my bike so basket capacity has
to be taken into account too.

I mostly stick to nickels now (we have 3 metal content varieties in circulation to sort here
in Canada) so I don't get that hefty of a load recently. Usually I only do pennies when I get
rolls from freinds or relatives.

This is realcent...and we're here to pump...you up...with pennies!

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

They are lighter on the return trips cause they are only zinc. When I do a drive-by pickup I bring 2 heavy duty canvas tote bags so I can balance the weight evenly. I calculate the weight when they tell me how much of each denomination and if it is going to be over 130 pounds I tll them to hold on for a minute while I run out to the car and get my cart (660 lb. capacity.) When returning zincs I usually machine roll them and return 8 boxes at a time (4 in each tote bag) or if I am returning loose I do 4 of the plastic coin shipment bags. The other day I was hauling in my 4 bags and I'm thinking "I could carry in 6 bags.. they're only zincs.. they are't so heavy."

[TheJonasCollegeFund]

They're not that heavy....just eat your wheaties....HA...get it....wheaties....I kill myself sometimes!

[shinnosuke]

They're not that heavy....just eat your wheaties....HA...get it....wheaties....I kill myself sometimes!

All those in favor of sending TheJonasCollegeFund to college for a remedial course on comedy, please say "aye".

[abe]

Rob needs a beer,

[TXBullion]

Aye. Oh what the heck, let's not pick on him

[TheJonasCollegeFund]

Rob needs a beer,

For each hand!

And a couple of boxes to go through, too! (The heavy copper ones!)

[wpd7]

So were they all copper? =P

[TwoAndAHalfCents]

Sounds like some serious volume for you guys. Hauling hundreds of pounds of pennies from the bank - WOW!!

I only have four measly boxes and I haven't even sorted them yet. But I'll keep telling myself they're all copper unti I do.