I can honestly feel your pain! Living on the west side of the US must be tough! I got a couple of boxes of Cents! I'm sure they came from there. 80% zinc 20% copper and 90% Denver mint. I don't know how they ended up here in Michigan. But, ya! Please keep them boxes away! .
It is true we don't often get Philly mint coins out west. Metal detecting out west is also not quite as exciting as metal detecting back east. Which in turn is not quite as exciting as metal detecting in Europe.
Due to your proximity to Chicago, a major processing hub for coins and currency alike, you are in the geographic easterly/westerly limit where you will get boxes supplied from either west or east. I think this should be embraced and valued because for a lot of us in the country the boxes are provided from either just east or just west. A benefit to finding a box from a western-based supplier is you will be more likely to find S-mint coins, which are comparatively quite elusive on the east coast than the west coast, typically. And with all of this said, I can attest that P-mint coins are not very common in the west. Although yesterday I did find a runover 1988 P-mint cent in a parking lot, which I took note was quite unusual for a parking lot find given the sampling size is usually just one coin at a time.
Finding P mint mark was like finding a Wheatback! I didn't spend much time going thru those boxes. Most were 2000+ with a D mint mark. Very little S mint marks also.
