Hello, new to this forum... Recently my uncle gave me 5 coffee cans full of pennies. There are literally 1000's of them here. My original plan was to quickly go through them and just pull out the Wheat backed pennies and take the rest to a Coinstar....when I realized I should probably be looking for quite a few different rare pennies that could be worth a lot. Are there any sorting procedures where I can quickly go through them all? ... my eyesight is not the best so any tips on magnifiers (preferably one that is hands free) would be helpful too. Thank you!
Reading glasses, 3X and 4X. most any drug store will have them. Take a few coins with you and check them out. OptiVisor headband. And Welcome to Coin Talk.
Hi, and welcome to the forum. There could be valuable cents in those cans. The only way to go through them is one at a time. You could get a USB microscope for $20, that helps find finer details. Find some good sites, and just keep referencing a list or sheet of valuable cents till you memorize it.
16X loupes work very well and can be found at an affordable price. Also I'd recommend staying away from coinstar. They can be innacurate and have a pretty big fee. If you want to use a coin machine try to find one at your bank/credit union. They usually don't charge much if any at all.
I like to do my initial gleen by separating by color. Then flip small piles upside down and separate by wheatback or memorial. I also find that usually a vast majority of BN colors are going to be mostly wheats or early memorials. I hoard all coppers....Quoting my pal paddyman98 "they all start out red"
I would start by sorting into decades and make a separate bag for 82 cents since there is so many varieties for this year. Purchase a scale. Then visit http://www.error-ref.com and http://doubleddie.com. Then start reading forums here. JMO Happy Hunting! P.S. have patience !
Here is everything I pull when I search cents: All wheat cents All 1959,63D,71,all 72,80,all 82,83,84,all 88,all 92,all 95,98,00,all 09 Lincoln reading All S mint marks Note: all with a year means all mint marks from that year Sort them all out by year and mint Mark. Have a box or container for each one. Toss them all into he box and keep searching. Once you have sorted all your coins, go back and look for varieties and errors. It’s much easier to find a 2000 WAM when you’ve seen a million that aren’t, as it’ll stick out. Happy hunting.
Thanks for all your responses and help! I went through 1 can and about 10% of another. Already found 11 Wheat Backs and a bunch of Canadian coins as well. My uncle lived in Michigan for as while (as did I) and it is not uncommon to have Canadian coins in your pocket =) Ill upload a pic of the coins as soon as possible so you all can see what I am working with. I would not be surprised if they weighed over 100 lbs... Oh - and about Coinstar - they have a real cool feature where they do not charge a fee if you transfer the coins onto an Amazon gift card for instance. I might just get a bunch of mason jars and label them - sorting them out per the recommendation of Seattlite86 and Amos 811.
I have yet to pull a single cent. They are like I said, just sitting and waiting. I walk by them several times a day. I cannot motivate myself to start on them. Having too much fun with half dollars.
My budget doesn’t allow me to sort much more than about 30-50 of cents and I haven’t been lucky enough to find a high dollar grab so I’m stuck in the minor leagues. For now!
These bags have $50 each in them. I have my hands in too many pots. You are doing it right with small amounts at a time. These are a little daunting. But we are hijacking this thread so I will stop now.
The copper ones are only worth face value. They will never be worth more than that despite the misinformation that there is 2 cents worth of copper in there. There may be 2 cents worth of copper in there but if it was legal to melt cents for the copper, cents are not grade A copper which is what the spot price is and the melters will pay 25% of the spot price for alloyed copper. Copper would have to go to $6 a pound to break even. In it's history it hasn't been much higher than $4 and currently is in the $2.75 area. Anyone hoarding copper cents is going to lose money because when they find out it's only worth face value, Coin Star fees are going to bite them for 11%.