Copper Penny Sorting - using a coin selector CH-268T

I bought a coin selector (ie. model # CH-268T) and spent a couple hours trying to get it "tuned" into copper pennies vs zinc pennies and the best I could do was a little better then 50/50.

Has anyone else bought one of these and been successful in accepting Zinc vs Copper pennies?

 

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I assume you're talking about CENTS, not pennies.
If so, then I further assume you're talking about the change in composition in 1982.

If so, remember the Gov't spent a lot of time (and money) making sure the clad CENTS had the same electronic signature as the bronze CENTS.
That was so that they would both work in vending machines and therefore that industry would not have to redo their coin slots.
So it appears that the two different coins appear very much the same to your selector.

 

I got one a couple of weeks ago. I set it up and ran about 1000 cents through it. It does a good job for me and I didn't have to adjust anything and was better than 99%. Are you using a zinc or copper in the machine as a target? I used copper.

 

Copper Penny & Silver coin Sorter half quarter dime bar on ebay seller krm1928 tunes his to get 95% or pennysorters.com. The settings are wrong if your only getting 50%

 

I've been seeing these listed on eBay, with the claim that they can sort "up to 50 rolls of coins per hour". I'm thinking that I could do just about that fast by hand -- particularly if you only need "up to 95%" accuracy, in which case I could just toss all the 1982's into one pile or another arbitrarily.

Now, show me an automated sorter that will pick out DD's and WAMs. (Actually, I've fiddled a bit with image processing and high-speed video cameras, and I thought about taking that on as a project -- but I can't afford a high-speed camera that gives real-time output, only the cheapies that record at high speed for later playback.)

 

to purify copper would require plating it out in an acid bath with DC to get 99.9% pure copper anyway. Who cares if the 5% zinc sinks to the bottom of the tank? I see 8 a pound for copper in 2 years with inflation just starting. That makes the copper pennies then worth 6 cents then. coinflation.com

 

copper or a sanded zinc sample 95%+ but once in awhile I get a bright shiny one that slips into the copper bin, turn the VR Tuner up?. But my real prize is the Canadian nickels pre1982 at $17 a pound. Any better scrap values than that see coinflation.com The ebay guy is krm1928 user ID

 

not if sorted by induction. They look the same but dont read the same in the machine. Passes a current THRU the coin.

 

Coin Sorter

I just bought one on Ebay for $35.00. It got here in 2 days, worked once sorting 3 copper and 7 zinc pennies into the right places and has been failing miserably ever since...what a piece of junk. I sent the guy an email asking if there were any adjustments that needed to be made that I wasn't aware of, but haven't heard back from him yet. He advertises a money-back guarantee, and that's all well and fine, but it doesn't recover the couple of hours wasted creating a test-run platform that could have been spent on other constructive endeavors...

 

I'm glad I stumbled across this thread. Sounds like a good item to avoid. I'm sure the commercial ones work much better, but are a bit more expensive.

 

Why a mechanical sorter takes all the fun out of it. My goodness what if you miss little treasures like this:



Why cast off a pretty little miss with those common bronze Lincolns? Hand sorting, tried and true since time immemorial.

 

I can't disagree with you scottish! Cherry picking is a great thing to do when the weather is bad. I can't see speeding up an activity you enjoy, unless it's like racing or something!

 

Mechanical Sorter taking all the fun out...

Well, the mechanical sorter, if it worked, would eliminate the need to look through all the newer and less valuable coins giving you more time to find the treasures...the Indian Head would fall in with the copper pennies

 

This is exactly what I do. Separating the newer chaff gives you a better look at the treasures. I do however, pull them out if I see a shiny MS 2009 in the discard/return bin.

BTW - my coin sorter works GREAT! I thought it was broken once, but there were two coins wedged behind the armature thingie. I CAN'T get it to work with anything but pennies (cents) however. Tried dimes and nickels (war) - no dice.

Also - mine came with a pre-82 penny in the 'sample' holder.

 

No guys - you could be out in that bad weather looking for scrap copper wires and pipes or knocking down telephone poles with your trucks! Haven't you been reading my posts?? Jeeesh.

 

Copper Penny Sorter CH-268T

I stand corrected...I did manage to finally get it to sort the copper from the zinc, but if you've got any indian-heads anywhere in the mix, they show up equally in both sides of the sort. I'm not sure why that is, and it doesn't mention that anywhere in the Ebay ad.

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The sorter is sorting the coins out by weight. IHC's are usually worn and thus weigh less than more modern coins without as much wear. If you find ones like the one I posted above it would end up on the copper pile. But the others I have found were pretty worn out - I found three of them in a massive 18k cents from one of my banks back in July. I prefer to bust open rolls and spread them out on a bath towel - so I can see all the little lurkers in their midst:



I took this picture as soon as I saw that distinctive reverse.

 

I don't have any evidence to disprove this theory - but I don't see how my sorter could be weighing anything. As fast as they zip through there - and they never 'pause' - how could they be weighed? Could it possibly be that the IHs being lumped in with the zincs are pre-1865, when they had a different composition? I copy/pasted this from Wikipedia:

The coins struck between 1859 and 1864 contained 88% copper and 12% nickel. During this time, prior to the issuance of the Five-Cent nickel coin, the cent was commonly referred to as a "Nickel" or "Nick," for short. Due to the hoarding of all coinage during the Civil War, the nickel cents disappeared from daily use and were replaced in manyNorthern cities by private tokens. The success of these copper tokens prompted the change of the cent to a similar metal. In 1864, the alloy changed to Bronze (95% copperand 5% tin and zinc), and the weight of the coins was reduced from 72 grains to 48 grains. This weight continued for copper-alloy U.S. cents until the 1982 introduction of the current copper-plated zinc cent.

I'm just guessing. Any other thoughts?

 

worked great but not now help

I used the sorter for several months and it worked well. But I didnt sort any cents for a while and tonight went back to sorting a new box of pennies. For some reason now it wont work. It is throwing all of the coins in the reject ben.

I wonder if it has anything to do with leaving it plugged in for the last month or so? Maybe I burned it up? Anyone else had this problem>? Can I replace something to make it work?