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I've been tracking my hand sorting percentages since I got started with this hobby a few months ago. After around 20 boxes and lots of CWRs, I thought I would share my percentages with the other members here both new and old. Maybe some of the newcomers can use this information to get a sense of what to look forward to. The numbers aren't great and I would never quit my day job to do this for a living. But I really enjoy sorting and finding interesting coins. Converting my money into solid boxes of copper cents along the way is nice too.

81.21% - That's how many are zincs. As these are separated out from the rest, it is my primary objective to get them dumped. Lot's of money can be tied up there.

18.28% - Those are the copper memorial cents. For every roll of pennies I open I hope to find 10 of these but more often than not I don't . They all get boxed up to become my copper hoard. The nicer AU/BU ones from the 60's and anything else that might stand out earn a spot in a different box but they are all part of the copper hoard.

0.51% - That's all that's left - wheats, dimes, Canadian cents, various foreign coins, etc. From about every other roll I open I find one coin that doesn't go on either the zinc or the copper pile. Of all these "other" coins, wheats are the ones I find most often. Canadian cents for me are at 0.08%. I haven't found enough of them to bother sorting them out by design or metal composition.

Another intesting number is the 88.44% of the coins that have Lincoln Memorial on the reverse. The new reverse designs have not become so plentiful yet to make sorting by reverse design a way to catch the bulk of the zincs. Maybe in a few years that will all change.

Comparing boxes to CWRs, I have found that boxes have had a higher copper percentage (18.59% vs 17.60%). However, the chances of finding one of the "other" coins has been about the same for boxes and CWRs.

Right on, thank you. We have just finished hand sorting 45 boxes in the last 2 months and was wondering what everyone else was finding. I Am not good a math so I don't try. But I can say at 40 boxes I STOPPED looking for theses "alleged" 98-99-2000 wide AMs, About 1 day later our daughter found one, so, I AM looking again.

We started out to just pull the copper, 2 cans, one for zink, one for copper. Next day 4 cans, zink, copper, Canadian, wheats,. Now we have 7 or 8 containers. One for all the pretties that will ebay for a slight premium. Double die and or stamped, clipped planchette, wheats etc. (3) 2cent Euros two from Belgium, one from the Netherlands and one (something) from Panama.

We get 25% copper (it's ok, my wife figured this out so it should be right lol)
About 1% copper Canadian, plenty for us to keep, but we live 40 miles from the border hahahaha
Avg 10 wheats per $25 box
ONE wide 1998 wide AM so far.
We keep all '09s because of the low mintage.
We keep and roll all '59s
We keep and separate all 82s

CWR which we get VERY little of are crap. Dirty, waxy, greasy, hairy, short, and NEVER any wheats.
One bank we get from (NF STRING stuff) is the above 25% copper bank rolled.
Find more dimes in CWRs I guess so that helps make up for their nastiness.
Its a sickness.

I've been small-time hand sorting in NJ for about 6 months now. I haven't been formally tracking my statistics, but every day I sort 2 rolls and I consistently get 30% copper. I would guess I get 1 wheat and 1 Canadian for every 3 rolls I sort. Pretty strange how different parts of the country seem to have such different success rates.

Rob

Indeed. One would think it would be far more consistent across the country. The west coast seems to suck for the most part... But I'm not going to move just to get better numbers!

In Charleston and Greenville, SC (because I live part time in both places) I am pulling 21% copper with approximately 9.5 wheats per box and 2 canadian/bahamian/panamanian cents per box. This is based on 32 boxes so far. It would seem that Charleston and Greenville within 1% similar copper percentages. I would assume that most big SC cities would be similar.

Not bad i haven't pulled more than 22% from a box. About 10-15 wheats per box.

I just sorted a 50.00 bag from a bank that saves me the bags from the coin machine. I went to the dump bank yesterday and turned back in 35.90 according to their machine. So out of 50.00 I got 14.10 pre 82 pennies. Puts me at 28.2% per 100.00 at that rate. It seemed like I was dumping a little bit more than average into the copper pyle but all in all it was a good run. Now if I only had about 3 more banks that would sell me bags id be set up just about right. Cutting through the rolled coin wrappers gets old after a while. I know im preaching to the choir here but its so much easier working out of the bagged coin.

Sort On
Mongo





The only hope we have in 2012 is that there is a change.

Please check out the Handsorter Tracking Thread to get some idea of what others are doing.

http://www.realcent.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8776&sid=aee9a14030713c513b751d33ecc787b0

Finding 30-33%, very thankful! Some of the percentages listed on this forum do not look very attractive. I often wonder what the special number is that makes it not worth the effort.