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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
 Posted - 02/19/2008 : 14:00:06
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I am always looking for ways to improve my sorting and to capture more old wheats and Indians. I originally started out doing a copper sort with the Ryedale and then a zinc resort after resetting the machine. This method captured most of the old wheats and Indians but was not perfect. I experimented with doing the zinc sort first and then resorting the copper concentrate. This cut down on the # of pennies that had to be sorted twice but was still not perfect. Testing with a few rolls of pennies fromthe teens showed me that I could not get 100% capture every time. I went back to my old method. In December I found a couple of Indians that I had missed on both the copper keep and zinc resort. I decided I needed a better way to avoid missing any good ones.
I now use a 1 sort method. I do a copper keep sort with the Ryedale.
I got these brightly colored plastic buckets at the dollar store. They are about 14 inches wide by 6 inches deep. I dump 400-500 pennies from the zinc reject box at a time and sift through them quickly eyeballing them as I move them from one side of the bucket to the other. It takes about 20-30 seconds to sort these by hand and pull out all the old wheats, Indians and dimes. This is a sort rate of 800-1500 per minute.. much faster than my beloved Ryedale! Once I pull out the good stuff I just dump the bucket in the bagging machine or the rolling machine, depending on the chosen method of zinc disposal. This method both satisfies my need to do a little hand sorting and saves wear and tear on the machine.
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If your percentages are low.. just sort more. If your percentages are high.. just sort more.
Now selling Copper pennies. 1.6x plus shipping. Limited amounts available. |
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TXTim
Penny Hoarding Member
629 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2008 : 07:52:14
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By copper keep do you mean - copper cent in the discriminator?
That would mean all the copper fall straight down and the zincs are rejected.
By rejecting the zinc, that kicker has to work harder.
Wouldn't it save even more wear and tear to just do the zinc penny in the disc. and reject only copper?
Then sift through the zincs in your bucket?
I'm really not sure which method recovers old wheats best - copper in the disc. or zinc in the disc. |
Beer is my currency. |
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horgad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1641 Posts |
 Posted - 02/20/2008 : 08:04:47
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I do what HCBTT described above, but the opposite by using a 1 pass zinc keep. I think the advantage of doing a 1 pass copper keep is that your copper pile would be very pure with no additional sorting which might be better for selling as is.
Since I do the opposite, my copper pile (everything but zincs) ends up with lots of other stuff in it while my zinc pile is very pure (just a very few coppers usually the older ones that I pick out by hand). I don't mind having the impure copper pile, because eventually I plan on hand sorting them all and pulling out the wheats, Canadians, dimes, stray zincs, errors, etc. So I will be set-up to sell pure batches of 1959-1982 US copper, pure batches of wheats, and pure batches of copper Canadians.
Note that either way requires a fast hand-sort through the zincs to recover strays. |
Edited by - horgad on 02/20/2008 08:06:48 |
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Ryedale
Administrator
USA
523 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2008 : 10:02:38
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quote:
Originally posted by TXTim
By copper keep do you mean - copper cent in the discriminator?
That would mean all the copper fall straight down and the zincs are rejected.
By rejecting the zinc, that kicker has to work harder.
Wouldn't it save even more wear and tear to just do the zinc penny in the disc. and reject only copper?
Then sift through the zincs in your bucket?
I'm really not sure which method recovers old wheats best - copper in the disc. or zinc in the disc.
The rake (kicker) actually pulls out of the way when it sees a "like" coin as the standard/reference. So copper keep, is the most easy on the machine. When in copper keep mode (copper in the discriminator) all zincs are rejected (among other things) and the rake never moves for these coins. You can carefully take the discriminator out of it's holder, and see the "rake" in the back. Thanks for the input everyone. |
Ryedale
GET YOUR DRI-SLIDE FROM IRONBRAID
http://www.ironbraid.com/driside.html
Used with permission from Ironbraid.
Quote
"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the most tempting moment."
— Dorothy Neville-Rolfe |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2008 : 12:14:20
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Whichever way you do it you need to look closely at the zinc side to find the good stuff. The old wheats and Indians really stand out in a bed of zincs. The key to my system that really improved the speed and accuracy is a $1 bucket I bought at the dollar store. It is almost like gold panning. I call it panning for old wheats and Indians. It is even more fun finding them this way than having the machine kick them out for you.
I like doing the copper keep method because as horgad says, your copper pile is pure. It is market ready at that point or you can do additional refining now or later to pull out the wheats, Canadians, Indians and dimes. I use that same bright $1 plastic pan to do my copper refining now too. Works great! Having the proper tools for the job always helps.. a heavy duty cart to wheel the pennies out of the bank, the Ryedale to sort the copper from the wheat, bagging and rolling machines to dispose of the zinc, and a $1 pan to seperate the wheat from the chaff. |
If your percentages are low.. just sort more. If your percentages are high.. just sort more.
Now selling Copper pennies. 1.6x plus shipping. Limited amounts available. |
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PennyProspector
Penny Pincher Member
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2008 : 20:54:19
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quote:
Originally posted by HoardCopperByTheTon
It is almost like gold panning. I call it panning for old wheats and Indians.
 HEY!!
I call it penny prospecting! lol
Penny prospector |
Happy Prospecting! |
Edited by - PennyProspector on 02/20/2008 20:55:10 |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2008 : 21:29:17
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Yep.. gotta get back to my copper mine tonight. Where's that damn burro?
That $1 pan sure makes things a lot easier. |
If your percentages are low.. just sort more. If your percentages are high.. just sort more.
Now selling Copper pennies. 1.6x plus shipping. Limited amounts available. |
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El Dee
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
547 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2008 : 22:05:45
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Horgad-
Do you do a high sensitivity zinc pass, or is your pot at the stock setting? |
Trust the government? Ask an Indian. |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2008 : 23:11:37
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| When I did a zinc sort.. whether it was a first sort or a second sort I always reset the pot for a high sensitivity zinc pass. But since the whole idea is just to seperate the zinc from the copper, using a copper keep with the pot set at normal gives me the best seperation. It only takes a quick run through the pan for the zinc before dumping it in the counter to be sure I don't miss a single good one, and my copper mix is pure right out of the chute with no additional sorting required. Purity of the copper mix is very important to me. |
If your percentages are low.. just sort more. If your percentages are high.. just sort more.
Now selling Copper pennies. 1.6x plus shipping. Limited amounts available. |
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horgad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1641 Posts |
Posted - 02/21/2008 : 07:52:52
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quote:
Originally posted by El Dee
Horgad-
Do you do a high sensitivity zinc pass, or is your pot at the stock setting?
I played around with the setting to both try and minimize both zincs in the copper reject pile and old coppers in the zinc pile. So it is most definitely not a high sensitivity zinc pass, but may be close to stock...not sure.
Last time I checked I was getting about 12 zincs per box in the copper pile and maybe half of the old wheats and Indians in the zinc pile (I pull maybe one good penny from the zinc pile out of every 3 to 5 boxes). The zincs in the copper pile don't really bother me much because I plan on hand sorting that pile anyway and taking out a few zincs doesn't really add any time. Reducing the number of old wheats and Indians in my zinc is important to me because it reduces the chances that I miss one during my very fast sort of the zincs. |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 02/21/2008 : 19:15:47
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| Horgad.. you just have to slow down a little when you are checking out that zinc pile to make sure you don't miss any of the good ones. Doing it in smaller batches of 4-500 improves your odds significantly, and it still goes pretty fast. Having the new wide plastic pan makes it work much better for me than my old method of sifting through the box and doing a slow pour. I am confident I am not missing a single one. |
If your percentages are low.. just sort more. If your percentages are high.. just sort more.
Now selling Copper pennies. 1.6x plus shipping. Limited amounts available. |
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Art Tatum
Penny Collector Member
USA
400 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2008 : 11:53:35
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I am picking up $2000 in pennies today! I am hoping to score something great!
then go to the chiropractor to get my neck adjusted! |
my machine is running! |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2008 : 23:45:23
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| You always seem to score something great! |
If your percentages are low.. just sort more. If your percentages are high.. just sort more.
Now selling Copper pennies. 1.6x plus shipping. Limited amounts available. |
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WilliamC
Penny Collector Member
USA
471 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2008 : 11:19:54
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Ok, now I have seen a wheat penny in one of my zinc return bags, which I of course have not deposited but will take home and resort to find it.
And here I thought all this talk about finding wheat's or Indian Heads in the zinc was a bit overboard. I mean come on now, how many of these can there be?
But there one was, a 1918, staring out at me from inside the sealed bag right before I walked it into the bank.
So I suppose I'll incorporate a quicky zinc re-sort into my process 'cause I sure don't want to miss these wheats and (possible) Indian Heads if they are there.
Live, sort, and learn eh? |
Sorting In Northwest Mississippi |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2008 : 11:59:14
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| Some would consider it an acceptable loss. But the ones that fall that way are all the best ones. Some of us really like finding old wheats and Indians so we have tried the find the fastest, easiest way to do this. I can actually check all of my zinc rejects by the time the Ryedale finishes sorting the box for copper. The manual method is actually faster and more accurate than any way you can configure the machine to do it. |
If your percentages are low.. just sort more. If your percentages are high.. just sort more.
Now selling Copper pennies. 1.6x plus shipping. Limited amounts available. |
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El Dee
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
547 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2008 : 12:38:56
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I'm reluctantly starting to believe. If I tune to my 1893 Indian, I get so many rejected zincs that I might as well use the manual method to begin with and skip doing two sorts.
Your pail is how big across?
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Trust the government? Ask an Indian. |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2008 : 12:49:40
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It is about 14 inches across. Best thing.. it only cost me a dollar! One of the other new guys achieved the same results using a large box or box lid.
The key is to not overload your sorting tray. Just do 400-500 at a time.. about 3 handfulls. You want to keep the amount reasonable. You quickly sift them from one side of the pan to the other so you get a pretty good look at each one. You will be suprized at how fast it goes. |
If your percentages are low.. just sort more. If your percentages are high.. just sort more.
Now selling Copper pennies. 1.6x plus shipping. Limited amounts available. |
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Alternative Zinc Resort Method.. Very Fast!
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