Taking it up a notch.

[kiwiman]

Hi, I'm thinking of doing a lot more penny sorting and i need advice, should i get another ryedale? 2 more? are counting and wrapping machines worth it? where should i sell the pennies, if on something like ebay what kind of pictures should i take to get the best response, what kind of description should i have? is there anyone near Grand rapids michigan that wants to buy copper pennies? Is double sorting necessary?
thanks for any advice
kiwiman

[kiwiman]

also what kind of profit can i make an hour?

[Common Cents]

Hold on tightly to your pennies. Selling them now is extremely shortsighted.

[kiwiman]

I dont have enough to hold onto that many considering i'm 16. I do have 60oz of silver though

[Henchman]

Selling them this week and the month or so ahead would probably be tough to make a decent profit. Current Cu spot is in the crapper. If you look in our trade forum a few guys have $100fv shipped for $150. That is a $35 profit for the work cause shipping is around $15. While $35 isn't bad, it most likely took 3-5 hours labor (man/machine) to sort through roughly $400 face value to get out $100 cu. My numbers are all estimates everyone has different actual results I am sure. To even get $400 from the bank would take at least 4 trips unless your big time. I do $100 each bank myself, easy enough to carry out and I don't piss the tellers off too much My point being, if you drive you have to factor in gasoline cutting into that profit of $35. So say you have pure profit of $32 / 4 hr (avg labor) = $8 per hour. That's about minimum wage, not bad but not were you want to be.

I suspect the guys selling for $150 shipped are trying to liquidate some coins to purchase or pay bills. If this is your case your best bet is to sell here also. I would avoid eBay, because they charge 9% for final value and shipping and PayPal is another 3%, so even if you sell for a bit more on eBay the fees kill you. The only great thing about eBay is the vast market it opens to you, just REALLY eats up your profit.

Like most of the guys on this forum I am in it for the long haul. I wouldn't sell any of the Cu that I personally sorted for less then 2x on my money. If you are looking to make some fast profits, I would suggest hitting some yard sales and buying some stuff cheap and reselling on eBay or CraigsList for 2x+ on your money. You can easily make $20-$100 profit a weekend once you get the hang of it for a few hours work.

Cheers,
Henchman

[kiwiman]

yea $400 wont take 4 trips, just one of my banks is more than willing to do $1800 a week. and ive got a great dump bank

[tinhorn]

I wouldn't mess around with counting and rolling unless you had to.

I sometimes wish I had a second Ryedale just for a backup if nothing else. I'm kinda small-scale, and I have Ebay auctions three days out. Sometimes I have penny auctions for coins I haven't sorted yet, and if the Ryedale poops out at the wrong time, I could be screwed. Heck, the spring that holds that noisy ball bearing in place on my machine broke one day--a first for Andy! Who coulda guessed?

If you have that kind of access to pennies, you should consider sorting and selling. But find your market before you spend a lot of money on equipment. You're young, so you might have to experiment a bit in order to find your niche. Me, I'm old and am selling all I can sort for 2.5x face.

[kiwiman]

Where on earth do you get 2.5x face?!

[tinhorn]

Where on earth do you get 2.5x face?!

I experimented a lot to find my niche. I also have over 40 years on you, so I know lots of things that DON'T work. The Scientific Research continues (lest some young whippersnapper with more energy than me tries to steal my lunch).

Just keep the nut small (your fixed expenses and overhead) and try stuff. You'll do okay.

[CoolRide]

Where on earth do you get 2.5x face?!

I think he said ebay.

Sammy

[Mossy]

also what kind of profit can i make an hour?

Say "What?" This is not the kind of thing that can be treated that way. The big boys can link up with Brinks or the Federal Reserve, and have huge machines that can process tons per day. They can bring down their costs per pound processed so low that we get knocked right out of the business. And they would, if there was a "profit per hour" that could be demonstrated.

No, this is for "someday" for most of us. Just trying to get a running start.