Methods for Hand Sorting

[HPMBTT]

We always mention that we hand sort, but it's never really been discussed how and/or what methods people use. I'd like to start a new thread where people can give and take and learn how others hand sort, what they look for and how you can improve their method or maybe even alter it altogether. A lot of us here at RC are not at the Ryedale level yet, so hand sorting is still applicable. If you have an interest in hand-sorting, you'll read this. If not, you won't.

What follows is my method. I'm looking to share with others here, as well as learn from others on how I can improve my method. Or, perhaps I'm missing something altogether and that you can share with me this new bit of info.

Equipment: Fold-up laptop table for my lap, comfy couch, 6x generic/crap magnifier, 10x good coin magnifier, powder-free vinyl gloves, one bright overhead 100W lamp pointed in my direction. One handwritten sheet which contains a list of Dansco needs (missing coins), upgrade needs (have Dansco coin but it's crap), keeper coins (for slab or re-sale) and a list of errors (Wheat & Memorial) to look for. One box for the junk zincolns. A large clean white soft kitchen towel covers the 3' by 2' laptop table. A pair of gloves will usually last me for two sittings of maybe 20-40 rolls before they start splitting.

OK, here we go....once the roll is busted open, I immediately pull all BU coins and near-perfect coins and look at them (about 10-15 per roll). I pull these right away, as this is my best opportunity to get a BU coin un-scratched. Keepers include BU 1950s & 60s coins, 2009/2010 coins with no spots. A quick check for errors (more on this later). All that takes less than a minute. Most go directly to the zinc pile.

Now the bulk of the roll...all heads face up to begin. Coppers to the left, all 1982s and unreadable coins to the right (will weigh them later to confirm copper content). Wheats, Canadians and other keepers go to the bottom of the table. Potential error coins go to the top to be looked at after the bulk of the roll is gone. All the rest go to the zinc pile box. OK, now it's time to look at the error potentials. Most people don't look for errors, but I look for the following errors: 83 DD Reverse, 84 Doubled Ear, 92/92D Close AM (very rare), 95 DDO, 98/99/00 Wide AM (all rare but you can find them). At this time, I also check for errors on any Wheats that were pulled.

All of this takes 4.5 minutes to 6 minutes per roll. Again, coppers left, 82s right, possible error coins above, keepers on the bottom. Keepers are checked against the Dansco penny albums to either fill a slot/hole or for a potential upgrade of an existing coin.

Moving on....once all CWR rolls have been done this way, I then weigh the 82/82D/unreadable pile. Hey, the crap or unreadables are still copper, as long as they weigh 3.1 grams, right? That's the way I look at it. Coppers are kept, zincs are dumped. Now that I have a proper count, the total count of Coppers, Wheats, CDN and other oddities go in my Excel spreadsheet. I do this so that I can not only check my percentages, but to see which bank consistently is giving me a better or worse percentage! (Feel free to offer bank advise if you have any)

Last step. This is something that most don't do. From my newly formed coppers pile: I pull all perfect brown patina 1959-1969 coins with absolutely no dirt/gunk of any kind; they must be beautiful or they get tossed. Part of me says that someday, I will do another Dansco album, but maybe with only beautiful brown coins such as these 60s coins; or perhaps sell them by the roll. I also pull all 1968-1974 S-Mints (clean or unclean). Finally, I check the coppers for errors: 1960 D/D, 1961D, 1970S, 1972 DDO.

Get up, stretch my neck, get some tea/espresso/cappucino. I hate the neck problems. Any idea on how to improve this? I'm always straining my neck to read the coins (even with magnifying glass).

All coins that will go in the Dansco albums get placed in warm water (only water!) for 30 minutes, then dried and rubbed very softly with soft white towel and only for five seconds or less. I don't want to 'clean' them, remove any patina and ruin any numismatic value. This is mainly to remove any loose dirt. I also do not even use the water method for any coins that I think I may want to sell. (feel free to comment on my water method or amount of time in water. I think I need more knowledge in this area) I only use a new clean glove for this step.

So there you go! That's my method. If you actually read this far, then I'm very impressed. Either you have a lot of time on your hands, are a genuine hand sorter, or both. Anyway, thanks for reading.

OK, your turn! I'm looking forward to your replies.

[mtalbot_ca]

Very impressive.

Being in Canada, we do not have this much coin diversity, so the sorting is much easier. Since the percentage of copper per roll is about 50% for my area, I usally re-roll every two rolls. I also always get two 25$ boxes at the same time. So, I pop open two rolls at once then:

Step 1: Three piles:
- Pile 1: zinc
- Pile 2: 1960-1996 (canadian) or 1981 (american)
- Pile 3: pre 60's and wheats (american)

Step 2: Pile 1 and 2 gets re-rolled. Pile 1 rolls are put back into one of the 25$ box and the pile 2 rolls the same ino the other 25$ box.

Step 3: Pile 3 is put into my special jar for further review. I only go this review when I have about 100 coins to look at.

Step 4: The further review pile, much simplier as I only review the canadian 52-53-54 coins and seperate the wheats from the pile and get them eventually into rolls. I also look for the nice patinas, all the ones that are not selected, are demoted to the pile 2.

Regards from Canada.

[jasmatk]

I crack about 10 bucks into a tub grab a hand full and start sorting zincs in a pile coppers in a pile 82s in a pile to be checked later wheats,canadian,s mint,ect. go in little piles I do this sitting on the couch,I always check the backs of coins before they go in there pile when im done the zincs go in the zinc bucket for return to bank the CU in a bucket for storage...you get the point it all gets put in one bucket or another.I dont check for errors.oh yea any ugly abes get put aside till I get alot saved up then I clean them in vinagar this happens every couple months the only reason i clean them is to get the green death off them so it dont spread to my other coppers.

[68Camaro]

Hardly a veteran, having done this for barely a month, but after some trial and error it quickly evolved into this, ideally.

Sit low at a high table, to minimize bending over, with good ambient light. LED flash and magnifier near as needed, as well as my simple 82 weighing scale (popsicle stick with a zinc glued to one end and a pivot point glued to the middle; much faster than literally measuring the weight in grams). Two bags nearby, one for coppers, other for zinc rejects. I have been making no attempt to sort for numismatic value.

Strive to open roll so that as many as possible "shingle" on top of each other at an angle, in a row. This makes flipping to see backside easy. I think go down the row quickly, from left to right. Coppers get pulled straight left, zincs pushed down, 82s pushed up for later weighing. I can do a roll in about a minute or less this way. I pull the coppers in to the copper bag on left, zincs into the zinc bag, and when I get enough 82s to make weighing in bulk worth it, I flip them onto the "scale", which I can do about 1 every 2 seconds. Counting other time spent for roll prep and organization of discards, and stretching, I can realistically do 1200-1500 per hour. About two hours or less to do a $25 box, which is about all I can stand to do in one sitting.

I pull the wheats, canadians, and other misc into a odd pile to the side to look at later.

[BadKarma]

Hardly a veteran, having done this for barely a month, but after some trial and error it quickly evolved into this, ideally.

Sit low at a high table, to minimize bending over, with good ambient light. LED flash and magnifier near as needed, as well as my simple 82 weighing scale (popsicle stick with a zinc glued to one end and a pivot point glued to the middle; much faster than literally measuring the weight in grams). Two bags nearby, one for coppers, other for zinc rejects. I have been making no attempt to sort for numismatic value.

Strive to open roll so that as many as possible "shingle" on top of each other at an angle, in a row. This makes flipping to see backside easy. I think go down the row quickly, from left to right. Coppers get pulled straight left, zincs pushed down, 82s pushed up for later weighing. I can do a roll in about a minute or less this way. I pull the coppers in to the copper bag on left, zincs into the zinc bag, and when I get enough 82s to make weighing in bulk worth it, I flip them onto the "scale", which I can do about 1 every 2 seconds. Counting other time spent for roll prep and organization of discards, and stretching, I can realistically do 1200-1500 per hour. About two hours or less to do a $25 box, which is about all I can stand to do in one sitting.

I pull the wheats, canadians, and other misc into a odd pile to the side to look at later.

Exactly the same way I sort, but I use a clip on magnifier and LED light on an old Bass Pro hat, my eyes are getting a bit old. May the Gods bless whoever it was that thought up the teeter totter 1982 sorter!!!!!!

[Economist]

Wow, you guys are precise! My simple method for hand-sorting a box in about 30 minutes:

Open box, overturn so all 50 rolls are standing on end. With pocket knife, I cut the ends off of 5 rolls at a time and array the coins in tight rolls (imagine a card dealer spreading out the cards on the table). Then, with both hands blazing, I rush through the coins- zincs go left, coppers down, wheats/ Cdns in a small pile, 82's in a seperate pile by my scale. When done, I scrape the coppers into a small bucket, and the zincs into a large bucket sitting on the floor. Of course about half the coins need to be flipped to check dates, but I don't flip all tails-up coins because you can usually tell by the strike whether it's copper or zinc. Of course I let a few coppers go by, but that's the cost of a quick search. I don't lose any wheats or canadians this way. And I weigh out all the 82's/ unreadables once I'm done with the rolls- it's much quicker than weighing them as they appear.

I think the trick is doing 5 rolls at a time. This gives me 10 batches per box. I spend about 30 sec. opening 5 rolls, and maybe 2-3 minutes sorting 5 rolls.

Still too much time for the volume I want to do, so I'm upgrading to a Sniper ASAP!

[silverhedgehog]

I run the bank rolls through a coin comparitor to start. CWR's and the coppers from the coin comparitor get hand sorted into 4 plastic boxes that are held in a larger plastic box. I like the "Really Usefull Boxes" sold at Office max because the stack well and can take the weight of the coins. My compartments are for Canadian, Wheats, Ugly Abes and 59-82, Zincs go in a 5th large box. When the Wheat bin is full, I'll subsort by decades into my Wheat sorter box (70-96, 60's 50's 40's) and roll them when there are enough. A full bin of Ugly Abes take a bath in CLR, get rinsed off and left to dry overnight before rolling. I mark my rolls with 59-82, Canada 70-96, cleaned ugly, Canada 60's, Canada 50's Wheat 50's Wheat 40's etc.....
Last year I kept records to see the percentages of the coppers found and the type. This year, all that matters is that I roll at least $1 worth of coppers per day. I keep about $50 in fresh rolls on hand and spend about 20 minutes per day sorting and rolling to stay ahead.

[68Camaro]

Wow, you guys are precise! My simple method for hand-sorting a box in about 30 minutes:

...

I think the trick is doing 5 rolls at a time. This gives me 10 batches per box. I spend about 30 sec. opening 5 rolls, and maybe 2-3 minutes sorting 5 rolls.

Still too much time for the volume I want to do, so I'm upgrading to a Sniper ASAP!

That's a great speed!

I do usually open 3-5 rolls at a time, which does further improve speed, I agree. Beyond that, I think your technique is similar; you're just faster. I can't see myself building up to your level of speed, which is at least 2x my best and 3-4x my normal. Fast hand-eye coordination for long periods of time was never my strong suite; I just start making bad mistakes (like throwing the latest sort of pennies into the wrong bag) and/or get headaches. I'm just doing this for myself, so I'm fine with where I'm at for now. If I was trying to do this as a business to sell to others, I clearly would have to do something else (automate, etc) to get at least 5-10x more through-put, as others have done.

[Dave]

I too, thank the person who came up with the teeter / todder system to weigh the 82's.

[HPMBTT]

We got some good responses here.

Jasmatk - I didn't think about cleaning the ugly abes before they go in with the regular coppers. Do they really affect the other regular coppers over time? Interesting. I have tried vinegar on regular coins, but I don't do that anymore, due to potential loss of numismatic value. But for Abes, it won't matter. Also, for all customers that buy copper pennies (ex: 68lb), do they care if some are ugly abes? I would think no, as they are still copper, which is the bottom line here.

68camaro - Sitting low at a higher table...duh! Why didn't I think of that before? Good one, I'll try that.

Economist - I like your idea of doing bigger quantities at one time (ie 5 rolls). Of course, I could only do this if I don't search for errors and that I accept that I will miss a few copppers along the way. Maybe I need to not be so critical and just do more volume. I also weigh all 82s after I'm done with all the rolls; it's just faster that way.

Silverhedgehog. The really useful boxes..that's an idea, as I need to expand, since my collection is getting too big now (grin ). I also slab BUs that I find, so that's starting to create another pile. LOL. Can you tell me from the link below, which boxes you use/recommend? There's so many. The Officemax website didn't have anything. Thanks for the tip.
http://www.reallyusefulproducts.co.uk/u ... sories.php

[silverhedgehog]

Sorry my mistake, They are sold at Office Depot. They have quite a good inventory of them. I was getting them on a buy one get one (BOGO) free promotion. This week they have the 3 liter ones for $4.99 and they are BOGO. Size will depend on the volume you sort and store. I use a 1.75 liter with 4 smaller 0.14 liter boxes in it. There is still some room for wrappers and some rolls. This started out as my travel sorter box to use in hotels at night when I travel but I use it all the time now. This works for me since my volume is low. They work great for organizing a safe too, just select sizes that will maximize the space you have. They are very sturdy and quite translucent so you can see what is in them. The bottoms fit into the tops to make stacking easy and secure.

http://www.officedepot.com/catalog/search.do?Ntt=really useful boxes&predict=true

[BadKarma]

How long do you soak them in CLR?

Gonna give this a whirl tonight.

[silverhedgehog]

CLR cleans up the ugly Abes pretty quick and lasts a long time since I use the same stuff over and over again. I use a a couple large plastic peanut butter jars one has the CLR and I add the coins and swirl it around a few times. Then I pour the CLR through a strainer into the other jar to collect the the coins and rinse them with warm water. I dump the wet coins onto a couple paper towels on a tray and let them dry overnight. About 1 minute of soaking works pretty good. If they are still bad I throw them in again for another minute. What is usually left on the coins is tar or paint. I just want to stop the corrosion before adding them to the hoard. The vinegar/salt bath method tended to etch or pit the coins if left too long. It is much slower than CLR too.

I am open to trying other methods so if someone has one start a new penny cleaning topic.

[BadKarma]

Thanks bro.

I got a couple mason jars not earning their keep for this project.