Hello forum. I joined today and this is my first post. I converted a manual coin sorter from Klopp International to sort out copper pennies. A box of $25.00 can be sorted within 10 minutes. Not bad for a manual machine. I uploaded a video on YouTube. What do you think? Thanks in advance Alex
If I feel like investing in copper, I just go to the bank and ask for nickels. I dont have to sort or make a contraption to sort them. Percentage wise, I feel the nickels and copper pennies have the same return ratio
Hmmmm.....Mr. McGuyver can you make it shoot pennies? All the birds and crows will never poop all over the car ever again.
I don't get the logic, do you thick nickel has more upside than copper....Pennies are worth twice face and nickels arn't even at face value in metal right now.....I've saved both for ten years now but only out of pocket change.....Its funny how I get happy when I'm getting handed change and I see a single copper penny.
For me sorting for copper pennies is fun and finding a wheat penny is rewarding. Bringing to life an antique manual sorter and making it function for this purpose was challenging, but not impossible. I wanted to make something simple and portable. I did not want to spend $400 on a Ryedale machine. Althoung, I think it is a great machine, but I wanted something simple and inexpensive for home use. I spend less than $18 (including parts) in restoring and painting the Klopp D2 manual counter. My total investment was less than $100 for the manual counter, the electrical coin separator and other misc items. Most items were purchased on ebay. The D2 is cheap on eBay and parts are still available for these old machines. I don't recommend the electrical klopp machines for this purpose. The electrical counter is to fast for the sorter. With the manual counter I clocked and sorted 235 coins per minute. After sorting I can use the same machine to wrap the pennies. I made some basic adjustments to increase the count. I will an updated a new video with adjustments and speed count. Thanks for your responses.
Good sense of humor. Next on the list is scanning for 1955 double die or 1922 no D mint mark. It's possible right? Yayaya
I don't get it. I know some people are buying and selling pre-1982, post 1958 dated cents but there are drawbacks to piling up a load of pennies that you really cant' do much with. You can't sell them to a recycler. It's against Mint regulation to destroy them. They are not pure copper and therefore even if they could be traded legally, a recycler wouldn't pay "melt" for them. The price of copper is figured on copper being electrolytically pure and sold in a large amount. A ton, I think....and cent coins don't make the metallic grade, so to speak to a recycler. Depending upon the dates, the pre-82 cents contain some zinc, tin, or a combination of the two. Nickels are about 75% copper so they are even more impure as far as recycling is concerned. There is a cost of more than two cents to make the coins but you can't get two cents out of them if they could be recycled legally. Right now, the only way to make a few bucks on them is to sell them to someone who doesn't understand that you can't do anything with them but make a pile of "pennies" Looking for rare die varieties is the key to making some bucks on cent searches..
Canada already stopped using pennies and many believe that the U.S. will do the same in the future. But even if they don't, there's still plenty of people on ebay that are already paying 1.5-2.5 times face value for copper pennies. When sorting through boxes looking for wheats, just put all the copper to the side, and when you have a few pounds just sell it on ebay. It's free money instead of dumping them at the bank for face value. This guy turned $10 into $24: http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-face-val...125065?pt=US_Other_Metals&hash=item19e27e8609
I agree that there is the potential to make money. I just think it takes advantage of those that don't understand what's going on. Canada considered the fact that the cent coins are not really used in commerce so that was a part of the decision. They also stopped making cents of copper years ago. They've been using plated coins too. So it wasn't so much the copper costs that played into the cessation of cent production in Canada.
Hey, I'll give Mendozaco credits for making a neat machine to sort out copper cents. Didn't seem to cost a lot which is another bonus.
Thanks for the responses. An average $25.00 box can retrieve upto $7 dollars in copper or $15.08 melt value per coinflaction.com. 7 to 10 wheats and an average of 5 Canadian pennies. I got lucky last week and found a VF20 1912S penny a $40 value in the redbook. You can't beat finding a $40 or 101 years coin for face value. gxseries the total cost is less than $100 and you can use the counter to wrap pennies, nickles, dimes and quarter after. The price on the coin counter are increasing on ebay. Last week I wanted to buy a second machine and the highest bid was $88+. I finally got a machine for $92. FYI, An average 50 cent wrap weights 155.1 grams or $1.08 melt value for those who prefer the $$$. Laundry?? Dude it separate the whites from the color. Keep rocking...
Them not being a 100% pure copper is not a huge drawback, since brass is fairly common. Brass is copper+zinc, which is what the U.S. pennies are composed of.
