mtalbot_ca wrote: I heard a ''rumor'' from my bank tellers that only 25% of the minted coins were returned.
Quite possible, I still get the occasional rolls at my credit union and still haven't
caught up on sorting so besides the copper I'm also "unintentionally hoarding"
zinc and steel core as well. Someone I know said their dad wanted even the steel
ones so I once I sort them even my steel and zinc will mostly just move to
someone else's hoard. (I leak a few steel cents back into circulation here and
there making exact payments.)
The main reason I've fallen behind on sorting is I've been doing the slow process
of carefully looking over every coin that looks somewhat good. I'm assembling a roll
of each of the better looking 2001 and up coins before I let those go. The zinc 1997-
2000 and copper I can look through later to separate "collection" from "hoard".
I've got a fairly big bucket of 1997-2000 so it won't be hard finding good examples
of each year in there. Once I fill out those rolls I can speed the process back up by
bulk "magnet sorting" the steel out before I separate the rest by hand.