A "jar" full of Pennies

I feel like there’s about one Wheatie for every 50-150 cents. This bottle is a bit older so there might be a few more wheaties in it. Saving anything pre-82 is not worth it - the coins are 95% copper, while you need 99.99% pure copper to conduct electricity. I doubt the melt ban will be lifted anytime soon and even if it is, you’re taking up a huge amount of space by having all those cents around.

You’d be better off putting copper cents in a savings account to draw interest than you are hoarding them.

 

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Breakfast of Champions!

 

My guess is there aren't many wheat backs in there. Had they started ten years earlier ....

 

Agreed.

 

I had TWO of those full of pennies that a friend gave me to get rid of. He just wanted face back - I searched the whole lot. His hoard started around 1980. I pulled some FANTASTIC coins out of those....like an MS-63 1999 WAM - lots and lots of BU cents from the 80's - 2000's, toners, IHC's, wheat cents, etc. I recommend you start a Memorial cent BU roll set. You'll likely find some nice BU examples in that hoard.

I cannot believe you broke that beautiful bottle. All you have to do is tip it on it's side and pour them out into another container.

Here's a shot of part of the truly unsearched hoard - at least until I got to it. LOL :

 

This stash FILLED my BU roll set I have been working on for years. The tubes with dots are issues for which I have abandoned trying to obtain better coins. Something would have to stick out "like a diamond in a goat's &%^" before I'd bother opening those tubes. LMAO Every coin in those is at least MS-66. The tubes labeled GEM are sealed with tape - those will never need to be checked against new finds. They are rejects from searching a lot of OBW rolls = minimum MS-67 for every coin.

 

My only thinking is that it had a stress crack, and when trying to move quite a few hundred pounds by the neck it gave.

 

I once bought 78,400 wheat cents from a lady. Half were in gallon jugs. Ran all through my coin counter. Each gallon held right at 5,000 cents. I am surprised that onecenter's 5 gallon jug held as many as it did. I hope I did not miscount mine by 2,000 per gallon. If I did I shortchanged the lady and also myself because I sold them the same way.

 

I have cut the top off of bottles with a glass cutter and a string fixed to the center of the opening. You might want to practice on a smaller bottle and file the sharp edges and be careful.

 

In 1979 I heard that they were going to start making cents out of zinc starting in '81. At the time I had a five gallon jar that I had been putting cents from my pocket change into since 1964. It was about five inches deep in bronze cents so I decided to fill it up before they started making zinc cents. I bought $10.00 worth of rolled cents every payday until I filled it. I did not check the dates before putting them in, I only pulled out the steel cents. Along the way, my dad liked the idea and pulled out a pint jar full of Indian head cents he'd been saving all his life from pocket change, put them in the jar unchecked. My older brother did the same and threw in about 1000 wheaties he had saved along the way. Neither had checked the dates. They weren't collectors, just pulled old coins out of circulation. The only non-bronze coin in the jar was an 1863 Indian head cent in AU condition that I found in a roll. I had filled it before 1981 and built a very nice wooden frame around it to protect it and display it. In 1983 I went to Alaska hoping to get work on the pipeline. Didn't happen but I so enjoyed myself up there that I stayed for ten years one winter. I had left the jar in my sister's care, making it clear that it was for my retirement and the only way she could dispose of it was to return it to me or give it to our brother. She agreed. When I came back from Alaska I retrieved my penny jar and displayed it until I retired in 2010. Then I started sorting through the jar. I started finding zinc cents right away... lots of them. I ended up with zero Indian Heads, zero Wheaties and over 5000 zinc cents. My sister, not a collector herself had allowed her housekeeper's son sort through them and strip out all the Wheaties and Indians so long as he replaced what he took and left the jar full like it was. "What? They were just pennies!" she said. grrrrrr...

 

How did you get them out? We had a hell of a time getting them out of ours. You don't think of that when you're putting the in, lol.

 

I love looking through large jugs like the ones pictured. The most I've looked through is 5000 but they were all wheat cents. Boy were my fingers dirty!

 

Around 1960, a relative brought me an ice cream tub (2 gal) full of pennies to go through. All wheats of course, including an '09 s. There were a few indians also. I only kept the ones I needed, and I have to wonder what great finds I let go.

 

Assuming that was a true story (...1983 Indian head cent in AU condition..) and assuming that that happened to me, I would do a bit more than say grrrrrrr.

 

I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no, but I’d recommend keeping an open mind to alternative theories.

 

It was not easy. I had to tip over the water bottle onto a towel lying on the floor and let handfuls fall out at a time. The bottle could not be picked-up until it was half empty since it weighed over 225 pounds.

 

Tilt it on it's side and jiggle around until they came out, then put them into other containers.

 

Here is how I store my pre 83 cents. They do take up an awful lot of space in the safe though. AND YES THESE ARE UNSEARCHED 59 AND ABOVE!!

 

Ooops... I meant to say 1863 Indian Head cent. Back then they were made of nickel. "grrrr" is about all I can do now but someday an opportunity to get even will come. Like Kahn said, "Revenge is a dish best served up cold."