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ME CO
Penny Pincher Member
USA
199 Posts |
 Posted - 07/14/2007 : 10:08:06
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I came upon this idea last night so I will throw it out there. This is for the guys who can get more boxes than you can sort- yet still need to turn in zincs to pay for even more boxes. If we knew what a box of solid coppers would weigh, box, wrappings, and 2500 coppers and we knew what a skunk box would weigh. Theoretically you could weigh the boxes on one of them new fangled bathroom scales and tell which ones would have more zincs and sort them first so as to get rid of them for more boxes. And boxes close to the copper weight may not even need sorted since you know your keeping most of them anyways. As I said this is for the 40 box a week crowd haha. This lil hand sorter is in no danger of getting enough boxes to have a problem haha. Mark
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2007 : 13:35:48
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quote:
Originally posted by ME CO
I came upon this idea last night so I will throw it out there. This is for the guys who can get more boxes than you can sort- yet still need to turn in zincs to pay for even more boxes. If we knew what a box of solid coppers would weigh, box, wrappings, and 2500 coppers and we knew what a skunk box would weigh. Theoretically you could weigh the boxes on one of them new fangled bathroom scales and tell which ones would have more zincs and sort them first so as to get rid of them for more boxes. And boxes close to the copper weight may not even need sorted since you know your keeping most of them anyways. As I said this is for the 40 box a week crowd haha. This lil hand sorter is in no danger of getting enough boxes to have a problem haha. Mark
Interesting idea Mark. I had thought about this before too. Theoretically if you had both of those weights you could set up a little spreadsheet and calculate pretty closely the percentage of copper in each box. The downside of this is that it would spoil the surprise of what your box would yield copper-wise. Part of the fun for me in sorting is figuring out my percentage at the end of a sort. You actually wouldn't need the weights of the pure boxes if you only had 40 or so boxes in stock. Just weigh each box as you get it in and slap a sticker on the end of it.. Stack all your boxes in a big penny wall and then when you get ready to sort decide if you are wanting to sort to free up capital or if you want to pick a box with a high copper percentage so you can post some good #'s here. If you are short on cash and want to get the most zinc to take back to the bank just pick the lightest box. For good percentages pick the heaviest box. This method works for everyone, regardless of how many boxes you get. It probably more to hand sorters though. I used to be a hand sorter and that was when I had the most problem with a backlog of unsorted boxes. I was better at obtaining boxes than finding time to sort them. I had a wall of unsorted pennies.. about 120 boxes. I looked at the wall, calculated how long it was taking me to sort, even though I had become very fast with my little digital scale, and figured out I was just slipping further and further behind. I needed help. (but psychiatric care is just oh so expensive, and would leave less money available to buy pennies with) I thought about employing some kids to sort. But there are those pesky child labor laws. The solution.. Automation. The Rydale machine allowed me to saw through my entire backlog in just a few days.. freeing up more than enough capital to pay for itself many times over. It also generated enough copper out of that backlog to pay for itself several times again. Based on my 40 box a week habit the machine was definately the way to go. Now I can rip through several boxes a night and never have much of a backlog. However many boxes I can manage to get, the machine just rips through them. The hardest part is just getting the coins out of the wrappers.. but I have gotten pretty good at that. I don't do enough volume to rationalize the purchase of that Rollcracker 1000 that busts open 100 rolls per minute, but other than a machine to open the rolls I am fully automated. Those new batheroom scales are not exactly accurate. A guy used one to sell me 2 buckets of wheat cents the other day and it came out to 78 pounds after weighing all the bags. This should have been 234 rolls but when I ran the coins through my high speed counter it came out to 250 rolls. I will give him the money at the next coin club meeting for the other 16 rolls even though it was his scale we used for the calculation. I have a postal scale that is much more accurate and can handle up to 72 pounds.
"Preserving coinage.. 2 tons at a time"
HoardCode0.1:M48/14USCA:US1Cu639700:US5Ni2400:CA5Ni46 |
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ME CO
Penny Pincher Member
USA
199 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2007 : 18:15:03
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| Your right buddy, and that wall of pennies was the one I was thinking of haha. I took a load of zinc to the CU today and must have taken 30 mins to count out $44.71, that also includes the time they emptied the machine cause it got full. I've got 3 other loads like that here already- what a pain- I can't imagine taking in a whole bucket full. Don't think I'm gonna get into the big time here but a box or 2 a week is fun. Mark |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2007 : 18:46:05
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Yeah, turning in the zinc can be a real pain, but an integral part of the whole operation. Usually wherever you take it they don't really want it, but you have to cash it in or you will run out of money before you run out of month. I used to envy you guys that would get the free counting service at the credit union. I guess I have it pretty good. The bank gives me a free stack of bags. I hook them up to my high speed Glory counting machine and set the batch stop to 5000 and hit the button. It counts between 1800-2000 coins per minute. I toss the bags in the trunk and then take 10 or 12 at a time down to the bank and use my nice little cart to haul them in. It will handle 660 pounds. The transaction at the bank takes about 5 minutes and then they just count out $100 bills for me in exchange for my pennies.. very convenient. I used to have to roll it to take it to my other bank. I have two Glory wrapping machines that each roll 10 rolls per minute. It sure beat hand rolling all those pennies. They started making noises about me bringing in too many pennies for them to handle when I rolled up 2600 rolls that first weekend after getting my new Rydale Coin Artist machine. Alas, I don't have a penny wall anymore. Now it is more like trying to remember where I might have stashed the odd box when I run out of pennies.
"Preserving coinage.. 2 tons at a time"
HoardCode0.1:M48/14USCA:US1Cu639700:US5Ni2400:CA5Ni46 |
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just carl
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
601 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2007 : 20:54:05
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Always remember that the weight of any coins is also dependant on the wear of the coins. For instance if you were to get $500 worth of dimes from the bank and someone else did the same thing, the actual weight could be massively different due to the amount of wear on the coins. The exact same date and mint mark pennies could weigh tremendously different if many are worn and the others are all new. The chances of two bags of pennies having coins of the same amount of wear is very smalll. Example is I've taken many Wheat Back Cents and put them in plastic rolls. Newer ones would be about 50 to a roll. Some very worn ones I could put 53 in the same type roll. Imagine the weight difference.
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2007 : 16:15:17
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Good point Carl. I've noticed the same thing about weight differces when I have bagged up bags of wheat cents or copper cents. Interesting thing also. I have noticed weight differences of up to half a gram on rolls of brand new pennies or quarters even though when I unroll them the length of the paper wrapper is the same. So there must be some slight variances even in newly minted coins.
"Preserving coinage.. 2 tons at a time"
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Box weights
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