Welcome to my second coin roll hunting article

I’m Dave Gates and this article series documents 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.

I also needed to figure out a good process and tools to use. Follow along as we search for hidden gems in boxes of pennies.

Goals for coin roll hunting

Please read my inaugural coin roll article for my goals and thought process. Below is the short version.

1. To have some fun.
2. Treasure Hunting.
3. To build up a copper bullion portfolio.

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

• $6.26 in copper coins.
• (8) nice condition coins, I’ll use to fill up coin albums.
• (15) random wheat pennies.
• (5) 1959 pennies.
• (6) Canadian pennies.
• (1) Panama coin.
• 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.

Here are some highlights from this box of coin roll hunting. This first image is the reverse of a Panama coin I found. This would be the first Panama coin ever for my collection. Cool!

Here is a picture of how I sort through them. The cooper pennies are on the top, the wheats are in the middle along with the 1959 pennies, next are the Canadian pennies, the singe Panama penny and at the bottom are the random nice condition pennies and oddities, I’ll use for albums.

Another interesting find was this 1977 penny I found stamped with the letters WY, I have no idea what this stands for and it would be interesting to find out.

So if any of you penny experts out there know what the WY stands for, please comment and share below. My guess is that it is just the initials for Wyoming, maybe a local bank stamped it. Or maybe someone’s initials. I have no idea. If you know or have seen this please comment below.

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 finally broke down and purchased one of those novelty coin counters. It worked well for a little bit, but then started registering what seemed like every other penny as a dime. This required me to adjust the dollar amount each time.

I’m not impressed with this device and may return it. But the reviews for the other devices are similar.

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

At the time of this writing the price of copper is around $3.00/lb

Additional notes: Having a serving tray to work on as shown in the pictures is a great way to move this project around the house as I work on it. Sometimes I work in the kitchen, sometimes I work at my desk. Having a convenient way to move this around is great. I’d highly recommend one if you decide to coin roll hunt.

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Thank you,

Dave Gates