sifting

[totient]

Sifting through 2500 of roozle's coins the other day, I found one silver dime, two wheat cents, and no bicentennial quarters. I'm not surprised that the wheat cents are getting less common (any pre-83 penny is worth a little more than 3c for the copper in it, and machines can easily tell them apart by the weight). I'm a little surprised, though, at how quickly 1976 quarters have disappeared from circulation, and even more surprised that my rate of finding silver in circulation is going up over time, even though silver coinage is now worth over 20 times face value. Is it just me?

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

I've found a few wheat pennies lately. I haven't found silver coinage in quite a few years, though.

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

nice icon there!

[rmd.livejournal.com]

I made the comment and then suddenly realized "WAIT, I HAVE A MONEY-THEMED ICON" and had to go back to edit it. so now we can see my cat laying on top of about $13000. Good kitty.

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the closest I get to "money" is this pic of me in the lap of Justice.

[dpolicar]

> Is it just me?

Well, when I sift through my collection of coins to identify unusual ones, what I most often run into is -- oh, wait. I never do that.

Never mind, then.

[jered]

Did you do this through manual inspection, or do you have some form of automation?

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

Manual inspection, while sorting the coins into pennies and nickels to let Coinstar turn in to Amazon credit, and everything else to roll myself. Sifting copper vs zinc pennies is too fussy to be worth the $5 or so expected return, but wheat cents and silver don't require peering at the date.

[jered]

Hmm, does one identify them? I have a cheap but effective coin sorter/counter, but I do have to do a quick manual inspection along the edge for stray euro, T tokens and dollars.

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

Silver coins sound and feel different, are generally more worn due to the softer metal, tarnish differently, and finally can be picked out of a stack during rolling by the lack of copper on the edge. Wheat cents require looking at the back, but you can generally not bother checking anything that's at all shiny, since they haven't been minted in 50+ years.

Copper pennies weigh a little bit more than zinc, and I would not be at all surprised if Coinstar machines were sorting them to sit on or possibly even sell for their "numismatic" (that is, melt) value.

[whc.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall that its now illegal to melt pennies for their scrap value, so I doubt coinstar is doing that.

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

No, I don't imagine they're melting the pennies, but I could easily imagine that they're sitting on a warehouse full of them and/or selling them in quantity to people who think they're a good investment. And maybe they even are a good investment.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

I think you have an odd form of luck; I do this fairly frequently, and bicentennial quarters are, if not a dime a dozen, no more than $3/dozen. I'd be happy to send as many as you like (within sanity) your way at that rate if you have specific interest beyond a general regard for their observed distribution.

The value of silver coins may be going up, but I think people's regard for change is going down; I know lots of people who take all coinage and look for the nearest tip/donation bucket to throw it in regardless. I doubt seeking them out is worth my time if I didn't find the quest itself of interest.

Currently I think I'm getting about one silver dime for each $100 or so of change processed, though recent surprises have included a couple of web press $1 notes and a buffalo nickel.

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

No specific interest, I just thought it interesting that out of 400 quarters, I found 0 bicentennials.

I bet you're right about the regard for change. Certainly this is how roozle came to have so much of it.

I went through 861 dimes (not counting the Canadian ones), so I guess finding a silver one isn't such a surprise.

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I haven't found any buffalo nickels recently but I did find a V (liberty head) nickel in circulation a couple of years ago, which was cool because those don't say "In God We Trust" on them.

edited to change userpic

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

I don't know what I'll do with it, but I have a jar of copper pennies (including a few wheat backs). The post-83 pennies, I tend to get rid of them at the supermarket's bulk candy section ("samples" are $0.05).

Last year(?), I read an article that there's a coin collector that has been "releasing into the wild" wheat backs, with the hope that kids will find them and develop an interest in collecting coins.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

Just found an article on Snopes confirming the story about the coin collector.

http://www.snopes.com/business/money/travers.asp
(three pennies with values of $200, $300, and $1,000)

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

Bicentennial quarters have been a good luck coin for me (stories provided upon request) since childhood. I've got about 7 from the original instances plus about 38 that I've collected over the years - whenever I come upon one in change or someone gives one to me. I haven't found a wheat penny or much silver in years.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

I actually got a wheat penny in my change in a Montreal airport last year.

Wait for it...

Yeah.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

current batch of coin sorting has about 4 bicentennial quarters but no silver ones. (late 1960's, yeah, but nothing before 1965.)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

also, no silver coinage at all (having sorted thru the rest of the coins). no wheat pennies, either.