Some statistics (Re-Updated and final tally)

[mtalbot_ca]

I do not want to bore you, but some of you guys requested it.

Total sorted: 500,000

.999 nickel found: 50,487 (10.1%)
Best box: 24.35%
Best sorting dates: In June and December as people a cashing in their coins. Plus I have to add February 2013 when the penny disappeared and everybody were returning their unwanted coinage.

Some cool stats:

Oldest date found : 1922
Oldest US found: Dateless Buffalo
Silver found: 1 War nickel
Rarest modern date: 1970 (with 62)
Oddest find: one washer
Most frequent non-nickel: 10 cents Canada (with 19)
Most frequent foreign find: 10 cents Cuba (with 13)
Dates not found: 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1932, 1935 and 1943 TOMBAC
Only semi-key dates found: 1930 (1) and 1948 (2)

[TwoAndAHalfCents]

The variation by time of year is interesting. I wonder if there is a similar pattern for copper cents here in the U.S. Those could be the months to spend my time stocking up on boxes for sorting during the rest of the year.

[plus1hdcp]

I appreciate your posting of the stats. 500,000 nickels - wow! I am approaching 150,000 sorting in the past 2 years. I have followed your posts over time and it appears as though you maintained a steadier pace than I. My tendency is to sort for a while, then head back to pennies, then something else, then repeat. Anyway, congrats on reaching you goal/milestone. You mentioned before, I think, you may take a breather for a while. Are you going to start searching other coins or do something else? Best wishes either way.

[mtalbot_ca]

... You mentioned before, I think, you may take a breather for a while. Are you going to start searching other coins or do something else? Best wishes either way.

I will search for varieties for awhile. Plus I have 625$ of canadian pennies to go through. Then will see, I tried the quarters and dimes before, but hardly any silver and the boxes were usually short, so it was a loosing proposition.

Here are some more fun stats:

I always kept the .999 uglies aside: Total: 902
I never put back in circulation a burnt, bent, corroded, sanded, cut or chemically altered coin.: Total: 289
The rate of attrition are as follow:

From the 20s: 99,69%
From the 30s: 98,30%
From the 40%: 95,75%
From the 50s: 91,97% (notice the drop)
From the 60s: 75,45%
From the 70s: 52,62%
From the 80s: 48,13%

The worst box yield: 3.35%
Around box 112-115 (the best boxes) from or around the 4th Feb 2013, when the penny dissappeared, was the inflexion point for significantly lower yielding boxes (what are the odds....) The beginning of the end....

More stats to follow...only if the crowd demands it.....

[henrysmedford]

Keep the info coming. I have been to busy working to go to the coin shop for Canadian coins but your post has me wanting to see what they have.

[Recyclersteve]

This data is great and very valuable to have. As long as you don't mind posting, I don't mind reading it. And thanks for the $10 prize for my guess on the other thread. The money is already in my Paypal account.

[mtalbot_ca]

Year - Mintage - Found
1922 - 4 763 186 - 1
1927 - 5 285 627 - 2
1928 - 4 588 725 - 2
1929 - 5 562 262 - 1
1930 - 3 685 991 - 1
1931 - 5 100 830 - 2
1933 - 2 597 867 - 4
1934 - 3 827 303 - 2
1936 - 4 400 450 - 1
1937 - 4 593 263 - 17
1938 - 3 898 974 - 5
1939 - 5 661 123 - 14
1940 - 13 820 197 - 42
1941 - 8 681 785 - 33
1942 - 10 243 778 - 12
1942 - Tombac - 1
1944 - 11 532 784 - 6
1945 - 18 893 216 - 13
1946 - 6 952 684 - 11
1947 - 17 198 848 - 17 (Plain)
- 35 (Maple Leaf)
1948 - 1 810 789 - 2
1949 - 13 736 276 - 26
1950 - 11 950 520 - 45
1951 - 12 642 641 - 14
- 7 (Comm.)
1952 - 10 891 148 - 24
1953 - 16 635 552 - 37
1954 - 6 998 662 - 15
1955 - 5 355 028 - 17
1956 - 9 399 854 - 61
1957 - 7 387 703 - 32
1958 - 7 607 521 - 37
1959 - 11 552 523 - 61

Total: 600

[mtalbot_ca]

Here are the final stats:

.999 from the 80s (1980-81) = 9 253 (or 18,33%)
.999 from the 70s (1970-79) = 30 824 (or 61,05%)
.999 from the 60s (1960-69) = 9 930 (or 19,67%
.999 from the 20s-50s = 480 (or 0,95%)

The standard deviation for the .999 yields was 57.4 coins or 2.9%.

Some other fun stuff....

It took me on average about 90 min per box, so I spend 375 hours sorting.
What I hated the most: burnt coins, and heavily smelly box (cheap perfume and cigarettes)
.999 nickels retained their appeareance much better that cupronickels ones.
Maybe I had a Thogey's widow event ... one time I had labelled coin tubes with dates but nothing older that 1960

I hope you enjoyed. do not hesitate to PM me if you want to know something else.

Cheers

[cecropia_moth]

Hope I didn't miss it somewhere, but out of the 9,930 from the 1960's...

How many 1967 rabbits did you find? I'm guessing you probably have this #.

How many 1960-1962 (the last of the 12-siders? I'm not sure you would have kept this, but if so just curious.

Thanks,

Jeff

[fasteddy]

thanks for posting...results are always fun/interesting.

[mtalbot_ca]

Hope I didn't miss it somewhere, but out of the 9,930 from the 1960's...

How many 1967 rabbits did you find? I'm guessing you probably have this #.

How many 1960-1962 (the last of the 12-siders? I'm not sure you would have kept this, but if so just curious.

Thanks,

Jeff

I see we have a 60's guy here

During the sorting operations I did not keep count, for each box of the 1960-61 and 62s, but I kept them all aside for re-sorting later. Here are the results:

1960: 277
1961: 339
1962: 247

As for the bunnies (67s), I found a total of 67, out of that total, I found 41 in a single box (274) all rolled into the same roll, plus one in another roll.

Cheers,

[cecropia_moth]

Thanks!

Those are pretty good numbers of the last three years of the .999 Ni 12-siders. I would have guessed fewer, given the different shape. Looking at my old 2009 Charlton there was quite a spike in mintage for the 1960-62 as compared to the 1959 and prior.

Removing the full roll outlier, only 27 rabbits. Wow, those are truly scarce in circulation in Canada! Not surprised given the novelty of the design.

Up until about a year ago, I would pick these up at the LCS in the price range of $0.08-$0.10/ea., depending on who was working the counter. There was never a shortage of Canadian .999 nickels here at that store in Wisconsin. My focus was to grab all the 1970, bunnies, young queen 12-siders and any KGVI and KGV's I could find. Uniform price too, even for the Kings and I was able to nab quite a few KGV's, of course none of the keys. I think very few of the 1970 and 1967 were true circulation coins, rather they were clipped from the PL sets. Fun times.

Jeff

[ZenOps]

I join you in nickel retirement today, went through probably half of what you did (250,000 nickels) Did not keep exact nickel statistics, but when I started three years ago about 11% were pure pre-1981 at the end here on Jan 15/2015 about 8%.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/big-ban ... -1.2655519

Starting today, as many as seven million Canadian accounts will be voluntarily no-fee (12 debits, 2 in branch) Which means too much competition for the change now. Now I can finally hose down and disinfect my sorting table

[mtalbot_ca]

I join you in nickel retirement today, .... Now I can finally hose down and disinfect my sorting table

I used two rags, which I washed from time to time and they were filthy as one can imagine... so good point about disinfecting.

Cheers,