So.. Yes, we all search and search.. well for a time I did nothing but separate Pre 83 Copper Cents then Separate Wheat's from those.. Well I did this .. a box or so a day for half a year.. 8 hrs a day.. ( Love my Job ).. I did not check for errors at all.. Now I am thinking of looking through one of my Sacks..Searching for those errors.. Does anyone have a method to such madness.. there is no organization to the coins now.. Is it worth it to sack up by year then search? It sure would be much more easy on my Cherrypickers guide pages and right mouse button.. I just think it would be hard to just look at date then bag just to go back to later.. and the time involved... I have 3 Bags.. about 60 Pounds each??
the easiest way to sort a large number of coins by year is to first just sort by the last digit, creation 10 piles rather than 100. then sort each pile by the second digit only. finally sort each pile by mintmark and you are done. time to start looking for varieties and errors!! Richard
Oh dear god what have I done.. This is going to be .. ah. fun.. Maybe get my little girl on it.. she loved looking though one bag for me to get the wheats.. Maybe next time I will look while I go..
Well I hate to say this but I can't imagine how many post 1983 errors you have probably tossed back into circulation after searching that many pennies... What do you do BTW??? Thats a LOT of pennies! First off before you throw any more goodies away you need to at least pull the key post 83 error dates as well so you can check them. I always look at 1983 for DDR, 1984 for DDO, 1992 for Close AM, 98 99 and 00 for Wide AM. I check for the 1995 DDO on occasion but usually just eyeball them and don't magnify them unless I see somthing funny. You can also weigh the 1983 pennies, never know you may find a copper one! With the pre83 stuff I do some searching as I go as far as pulling out anything is really nice shape, wheaties and anything odd like machine doubling to look at closer. I also check the 1972's whenever they come through as there are several different versions of the DDO. One of which is not really noticable to the naked eye and worth quite a bit according to coppercoins.com. With as many as you have it is hard to say what the best way is. Personally I wouldn't bother sorting them all into year/mm, that will take a few years by itself! Have fun J
Oh I looked and looked at the others before I returned for more boxes.. I was looking for that wide AM.. No luck.. is that nuts.. looked and looked and have not seen one.. another post.. "FOUND ANOTHER" the other day... why can't I find one.. Arg! When I was doing this I was Working Support for Apple.. Easy while on calls to look and while troubleshooting issues.. Now I am working a bit of the same.. Phone Support for Verizon Wireless.. Its great to get paid and be looking through coins at the same time..
I'm not very good at the other stuff yet but have found 3 98 WAM's in the last 2 months while averaging about 1.5 boxes a week during that time period. I put all of the 98-00 in a pile while working a box (or boxes). Then when I'm done with the other coins I line those guys up in several rows of a dozen or so with the AM on top. Then I work a vertical row at a time with a large magnifying glass. After eyeballing dozens of regular AM's, that wide gap really jumps out at you. I know this sounds like a kindergarden approach but i need something easy after staring at a pc 9 hours a day > JAC
Fascinating. I always sort by decade first, then I have 10 plastic cups labeled 0-9. I usually put them in two rows in front of me, 0-4 and 5-9, and I throw coins into the various cups as I examine the dates. I think this could be a thread on its own: How to sort large quantities of coins.
You should look at ALL post 1993 Philadelphia for wide AM's. We know it happened in those years an there is the POTENTIAL that it could have happened on any of the post 1993 dates and just haven't been found yet because veryone looks at those three years and ignores the rest. One 1996 WAM has been reported by a reliable source but the coin was later stolen. But that should confirm hat other dates may be possible. You don't want to through away a very rare 96 WAM becaus you are just searching for he common 1998 WAM. Basically what I am saying is that if you only search for what is already known, you run the risk of discarding potentially valuable new discoveries. (How do you think new discoveries are made?)
