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Ardent Listener
Administrator
USA
4841 Posts |
 Posted - 08/22/2007 : 19:48:52
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For those who are interested in sorting pennies by the weight of the boxes, you may find the following helpful.
A pure copper box of pennies ($25.00 or 2500 pennies) = 17.125 lbs.
A pure zinc box of of pennies ($25.00 or 2500 pennies = 13.766 lbs.
So any box heavier than 14.45 lbs should be 25% copper or more unto to 17.125 lbs. or 100% copper.
Credit given to Ryedale for the above information.
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Fanaticism is doubling one's efforts, yet forgetting one's purpose.
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Ryedale
Administrator
USA
523 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2007 : 20:09:35
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I thought that looked familiar, Keep in mind In my original calculation, I did not add in the paper, plastic, or cardboard weight. Nor did I adjust for Canadian contamination (although I like Canadian contamination in this case)
Ryedale
Hoard Copper Pennies,
The market will develop |
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n/a
deleted
78 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2007 : 00:25:35
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Given those two numbers, you can determine the percentage by:
(Weight - 13.766) / 3.359
This will give you a decimal; multiply by 100 to get the percentage (for example, .25 is 25%)
This would make 14.45 come out to about 20%, so I may have made a mistake somewhere, but it works for both edge cases (17.125 and 13.766). |
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Ardent Listener
Administrator
USA
4841 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2007 : 10:17:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Ryedale
I thought that looked familiar, Keep in mind In my original calculation, I did not add in the paper, plastic, or cardboard weight. Nor did I adjust for Canadian contamination (although I like Canadian contamination in this case)
Ryedale
Hoard Copper Pennies,
The market will develop
Yes, this is for 'ballpark' use only. Who knows, you may find a lot of darn dimes mixed into your rolls. :)
Consider the following if you are not sorting via a sorting machine yet, but you want to make a big time start on penny hoarding. As per coinflation on 8/23/07, Copper pennies are at 219.14% melt value over their face value. Zinc cents are at 80.43% melt value. Together they equal (divided by two) 149.785%. That would be a box of half copper and half zinc. Good luck finding one. But a 75% zinc/25% copper box should have a melt value of 115.1075% (someone check my math please  ) That is not as high as a box of nickels 124.34%. Still, boxes heavier than 14.45 lbs. may be worth while hoarding until you get your machine. You have to decide for yourself. Remember the price of zinc may go up fast again and/or if a penny shortage should occure, you may be able to sell the zincers back to the banks or China-Mart at a profit.
The main thing is that you can still buy coopper/zinc boxes now. Once a steel cent enters the picture that will no longer be an option.
Just a thought.
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Fanaticism is doubling one's efforts, yet forgetting one's purpose.
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Ryedale
Administrator
USA
523 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2007 : 11:58:41
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I just weighed a Brinks bank box, with 50 empty plastic wrappers in it, and it came in at 119.5 grams.
So this would be added to either total,
I will do paper wrappers and NF String style box later.
Ryedale
Hoard Copper Pennies,
The market will develop |
Edited by - Ryedale on 08/23/2007 13:31:19 |
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horgad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1641 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2007 : 12:37:59
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Excellent idea. I used to do something similar for fun with penny rolls. I would weigh the rolls before I sorted it and guess what was inside.
I guess that if I was going to do this I might go down to the roll level. On the other hand, one of the Indian Head pennys that I found came out of a very poor copper percentage box (not sure about the roll) that was over loaded with brand new 2007s.
As for your observations on the value of hoarded boxes, I would take a more optimistic stance. The zincs can never drop below a penny (or 100%). So a 75% zinc/25% copper box has a "melt" value of (75% * 100%) + (25% * 219.14%) = 129.785%.
Of course, if you were truly going to never sort the box and melt the whole thing at once, then you would have to take the loss on the below face zinc melt. And as you suggested, a 75/25 box would only be worth 115.1075% over cost.
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Edited by - horgad on 08/23/2007 12:43:06 |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2007 : 14:22:05
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quote:
Originally posted by Ardent Listener
Yes, this is for 'ballpark' use only. Who knows, you may find a lot of darn dimes mixed into your rolls. :)
Consider the following if you are not sorting via a sorting machine yet, but you want to make a big time start on penny hoarding. The main thing is that you can still buy coopper/zinc boxes now. Once a steel cent enters the picture that will no longer be an option.
Yeah, I got some of those boxes with lots of "darn dimes" last night  I don't mind.
I agree with you about it being time to think about hoarding some boxes of unsorted pennies before a composition change if you are not sorting by machine yet. It is even more important to hoard a bunch of unsorted boxes of pennies if you are sorting by machine. If supplies dry up after the steel cent comes out what are you going to feed the machine with? I don't think the regular pennies will vanish overnight, but the sooner you lay in a supply of boxes the heavier they will probably be, hence more copper. I just put in an order at one of my banks for 48 more boxes for next week. I will have to see what I can get from my other banks.
"Preserving REAL coinage.. 2 tons at a time"
HoardCode0.1:M49/15USCA:US1Cu677000(150000 Reserved):US5Ni17500:CA5Ni1150 |
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Ardent Listener
Administrator
USA
4841 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2007 : 16:38:17
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quote:
Originally posted by HoardCopperByTheTon
quote:
Originally posted by Ardent Listener
Yes, this is for 'ballpark' use only. Who knows, you may find a lot of darn dimes mixed into your rolls. :)
Consider the following if you are not sorting via a sorting machine yet, but you want to make a big time start on penny hoarding. The main thing is that you can still buy coopper/zinc boxes now. Once a steel cent enters the picture that will no longer be an option.
Yeah, I got some of those boxes with lots of "darn dimes" last night I don't mind.
I agree with you about it being time to think about hoarding some boxes of unsorted pennies before a composition change if you are not sorting by machine yet. It is even more important to hoard a bunch of unsorted boxes of pennies if you are sorting by machine. If supplies dry up after the steel cent comes out what are you going to feed the machine with? I don't think the regular pennies will vanish overnight, but the sooner you lay in a supply of boxes the heavier they will probably be, hence more copper. I just put in an order at one of my banks for 48 more boxes for next week. I will have to see what I can get from my other banks.
"Preserving REAL coinage.. 2 tons at a time"
HoardCode0.1:M49/15USCA:US1Cu677000(150000 Reserved):US5Ni17500:CA5Ni1150
You must have a great bank that you deal with there, by the ton. 48 boxes  !
If steel cents were mixed into penny boxes then it would throw-off the weight/percentages. Once the copper cents are gone or at least very rare, then zinc cents would be most logical choice to go after. I assume the Ryedale sorter wouldn't have any trouble with sorting them form steel cents. I seem to recall Ryedale or someone else saying that they put some WWII steel cents through without any problems.
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Fanaticism is doubling one's efforts, yet forgetting one's purpose.
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2007 : 19:02:43
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Yeah, it is one of many good banks I have.. but certainly my favorite. This is my dump bank also. They never even blink when I roll in with my cart full of rejects. They are getting me a whole box of the new Jefferson Dollars this Friday. They are pretty darn nice to me considering I only have 17 dollars in my account. LOL It is actaully 2 seperate shipments of 24 boxes each. One on Tuesday and one on Friday. They are so nice they even hold them in the vault for me until I can stop by and pick them up the following day. Most of my other banks want me to pick up the boxes the same day the armored car delivers them because they don't have the vault capacity.
Yes, the Ryedale machine will have no problem sorting out the steel pennies also.. it already does that with the new Canadian pennies. Somebody will probably rig something up with a strong electic magnet to sort out the steel pennies. We have a huge machine at work that sorts cans that way. I think there will still be some pennies left for us to sort for a while. The average person without a machine will still feel it is too much effort for too little return, much as they do now.
"Preserving REAL coinage.. 2 tons at a time"
HoardCode0.1:M49/15USCA:US1Cu677000(150000 Reserved):US5Ni17500:CA5Ni1150 |
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Box sorting.
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