First post here, but I've been lurking for awhile. I've been coin roll hunting for about two years now, but this past year, I've really concentrated on searching pennies and have amassed probably $250 face of copper. I'm here in rural Wisconsin and have 4 banks to choose from but two main ones where I have accounts. My main bank provides me with the bulk of the pennies as they have a coin dump machine in the lobby and go through a considerable amount of coins. Last week I told "Lynn" the gal in charge of hard count that my goal til the end of the year was to go through $500. She looked in the room and said she could set me up with $150 right now and she would not send any pennies out to the Fed like she does every Tuesday. I teach WI CCW courses and had a couple students run through the course, so I usually buy pennies after my CCW classes. So yesterday I went in to get $200 worth and she says the other branch from a small town 20 miles away just brought over a load of pennies. It would appear one of those schools just had a penny war and that bank got all the pennies. So I ask what can I get and she starts figuring. She says she has $750 available in pennies for me. Wow, so I get $325 initially and let her know as I get those sorted I will take the rest as I make my dumps. She promised she would not send any of them back to the Fed. So it looks like I got a lot of sorting to get started on. I'm starting today as I have the day off and have recently started keeping statistics and documenting my take percentages, unique coins, 1982's, Canadians, Wheats, BU, etc. So far before starting to document I had estimated 25% and now that i'm keeping statistics, it would appear that is the consistant copper percentage. One thing of note, I have been saving 1982's and then weighing them on a gram scale when I get a ziplock bag full. Couple weeks ago I weighed out 13 pounds of 1982's. Ratio was 10 pounds copper, 3 pounds zinc 1982. Makes it very worthwhile to keep sorting 1982's.
So I will keep the group aprised of my $750 sort. Should be able to knock off at least $25 a day. However with work and Holiday's it may take awhile. I look forward to finding some new, unique coins because of this penny war take and can only hope some kid grabbed all of mom and dad's wheats they were saving and dumped them in the penny war box.
Thanks for the great site.