It just occurred to me...

[OtusLotus]

As I bang my pennies, I am always careful to separate the nice coppers from the "ugly abes"...

But for those people who use the rydales or other sorters, they aren't looking at the resulting copper hoard, and then going thru it to take out the greenies, etc.

They are just selling based on the weight..

so, if the mass sorters don't care.... why should I?

[STINGER]

As I'm dumping the 5 gal buckets into the bigger containers on pallets I always pull al the green ones I see. The pile is starting to get big. Don't know if it will help keep the others clean But I'm thinking it might help a little.

[maoguinn]

As I bang my pennies, I am always careful to separate the nice coppers from the "ugly abes"...

But for those people who use the rydales or other sorters, they aren't looking at the resulting copper hoard, and then going thru it to take out the greenies, etc.

They are just selling based on the weight..

so, if the mass sorters don't care.... why should I?

Some things you should just keep to yourself.

[VWBEAMER]

That's what happen when you love copper too much....or you have a wife named Penny.

[maoguinn]

That's what happen when you love copper too much....or you have a wife named Penny.

That's so funny!

[justj2k78]

That's what happen when you love copper too much....or you have a wife named Penny.

I have a dog named Penny, not sure how I feel about that right now.

[TXBullion]

Time to lock this post down, things got too weird, too fast

[PennyBoy]

That's what happen when you love copper too much....or you have a wife named Penny.

I have a dog named Penny, not sure how I feel about that right now.

I'm with you! My parents have TWO dogs named Penny. No bueno.

[OtusLotus]

#1...My girlfried does have a dog names penny,

Back to topic...I understand that some people (like Stinger) only sort for the copper and then upon re-organizing, pull out the ones that are dirty.. got it...

I am sure that a majority of the ugly abes get by, and therefore are just mixed in...

I have never seen anyone sell their copper as 100% copper, 0% zincs, 0% ugly abes...

So as a handsorter, why should I care to separate them if the majority of the mega sorters dont?

BTW.. I will never use the word bang on the forum.. the conversation always ends up going down that path.

[barrytrot]

#1...My girlfried does have a dog names penny,

Back to topic...I understand that some people (like Stinger) only sort for the copper and then upon re-organizing, pull out the ones that are dirty.. got it...

I am sure that a majority of the ugly abes get by, and therefore are just mixed in...

I have never seen anyone sell their copper as 100% copper, 0% zincs, 0% ugly abes...

So as a handsorter, why should I care to separate them if the majority of the mega sorters dont?

BTW.. I will never use the word bang on the forum.. the conversation always ends up going down that path.

Someone needs to try it.

I predict that a sale of "100% copper, 0% zincs, 0% ugly abes" would yield at least some premium.

Therefore if that's what you really have, definitely market it that way!

[Pennybug]

Do ugly Abes matter now? Not really. Will they in the future? Yes... to an extent.

Look at other coins. It certainly matters when dealing with silver... and it pretty much already matters now with Canadian nickels. That said... when the "penny thing" were all doing goes mainstream in the future... I think there will be a premium paid on nicer coppers. I'm not convinced that it will amount to much though unless were looking on a single penny or small lot basis. I don't sort my Abes out right now. Personally... if I were to go out and buy some coppers right now... there's no way I'd pay any extra for clean Abes. I guess I just don't see anyone else doing that either... unless your talking about small lots or numismatic pieces. I go with the theory that most of the Rydale guys aren't sorting theirs... so why should I? It seems like so much more work with minimal potential payoff. I look at it like this... I have silver. I divide my silver into two groups... BU (eagles and alike) and circulated (90% stuff). I don't see any reason to treat copper differently. I'm sure there will be/already are others who disagree with me here...

All that said... I do think that it will mater in the future some... just enough for me to justify sorting them out right now. I suppose that if it ever does amount to a significant difference... I'll just have to go back and sort some Abes! Hey... by then... there won't be anything left of value to sort anyhow... and I'll probably have some sort of "sorters withdraw" so I'll need something to do anyhow right?

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

Actually.. somebody does already remove the ugly abes and market the clean copper as "Premium copper." The Copper Cave packages and sells the coppers that way. He even has a really cool setup with conveyor belts for sorting out the ugly abes from the standard mix.

Most folks would rather have premium copper as opposed to the standard mix.. they just aren't usually willing to pay much of a premium for it. I used to sort off all my ugly abes when I first started selling on eBay a few years ago. I wanted to make sure I delivered a good product.. and this resulted in a lot of repeat bidders. I even sold off a few boxes of "ugly abes" to other members here to add to their hoards cheaply. As more and more sellers entered the marketplace and the price of copper tanked I realized that I needed to conform to the standard to be competitive. I couldn't keep spending the significant amount of time to hand sort what I had already machine sorted twice in order to provide a superior product which was not bringing a premium over the standard mix. Hand sorting is much too labor intensive for me. The whole idea of having all these machines is to process as many pennies as possible in the least amount of time. Right now is the time for "Copper Capture." I want to capture as much copper as I can while the conditions are right. I can always go back and sort out the ugly abes later.. or make up bags of S mint cents.. when the market makes it lucrative to do so.

[cwgii]

as a handsorter. i take no more time to throw out the CU--LL as i call them. and as i dont even try to seperate the cu-zn 82. those are seperated also. but it does mean i have to sell a box made up of those 'rejects' for not much over face value.

[VWBEAMER]

No offense intended, just joking...

[exbingoaddict]

Are you hoarding copper or running a beauty pageant?

[OtusLotus]

nicely put ex