Welcome to my inaugural coin roll hunting article

I’m Dave Gates and this article series will document my experience coin roll hunting pennies.

I initially started coin roll hunting in November of 2017.

At first I randomly picked up two boxes of pennies from the bank. I was attempting to find out what was available. I also wanted to see what it was going to be like searching through so many coins. So actually this would have been my third box of pennies,  but my first box and article writing about it.

I also needed to figure out a good process and tools to use.

Goals for coin roll hunting

My goals for coin roll hunting pennies.

1. To have some educational fun with my son. I haven’t met anyone who has gotten rich from this, but its fun to watch my son open up so many rolls of pennies. Hey, bonus he is a good helper. Teaching him about money and spending quality time with him is also a good thing.
2. Another goal is to build up a copper bullion portfolio. After all the bullion value of a penny is almost twice the face value. So this is my inexpensive way of investing in the copper bullion market. Additionally, I also feel the fate of the penny is nearing. So if and when the time comes, I’d easily be able to at least double my money cashing them in for the cooper content.
3. I’ve always been interested in treasure hunting in general. So finding pennies worth more is fun and interesting. For starters, I’m going to collect and keep all the wheat pennies I find. I know there are other collectors out there, so if I ever get bored with this, I can always sell what I find.
4. And lastly, I love money, so this hobby works well in filling my spare time with something productive. Maybe my career should have been in banking or printing money at the bureau of engraving and printing. Now that’s a sight to see.

So here is what I found from my first box of coin roll hunting $25 in pennies.

• A nice amount of copper.
• 35 nice condition coins, I’ll use to fill up coin albums.
• 15 random wheat pennies.
• 5 Canadian pennies.
• Lots of other newer zinc coins which I’ll return to the bank.

I’m lucky the bank I use has a coin counting machine when returning the zinc pennies, so this won’t cost me. Some banks charge a 10% fee on the amount counted.

In fact another reason for starting this project was to keep my cost as minimal as possible. If I had to pay for returning the rejects I don’t think I’d be as agreeable to this project.

Conclusion

So far so good, I’m glad I started this. I think I’ll ask for those coin folders for Christmas or my birthday.

I also need to find a coin counter so I can add up the copper coins. For now I’ve been placing them in a container. It would be nice to know how much I actually have in dollar amount.

I also need to find a solution to storing the copper coins. Some form of container or canvas bags I think would be nice.

Not to self: At the time of this writing the price of copper is around $3.00/lb

Image notes, the box in this picture is full. The coins in the tray are from be fist box I’m writing about. So the second article will discuss the second box which is the box you see in the picture.

Update August 8, 2021

When I initially packed away the first coins, I was using a tin can. I put a note inside the can with the date and price of copper. Since I’ve decided to move away from the tin can and put the coins back in their original box. I took everything out of this can to re-package them in original boxes.

The price and date at the time I fill the first batch was $3.20 / lb and that was August 2018 by the time I got around to it.