THAT is perfect!!! I've got 10 large Maxwell House coffee cans and 5 large Folgers coffee cans full of pennies. I'll be sorting pennies and.................... You guessed it, drinking coffee ☕! 😂 ☕☕☕🪙🪙🪙🪙☕☕☕🪙🪙🪙🪙☕☕☕😆. Thank You for the awesome project. Everytime I toss a few pennies in a can, I think about sorting out the coppers. I do always look for wheats, indians and Canadians. Thank You, again. Have a great week and be safe out there.
That's great! I remember going through old cans and jars of pennies looking for wheats; I think that's what got me interested in coins in the first place. Good luck with the sorting and coffee drinking, haha! And thanks for checking in. It's fun to make a new video, and it's always great to hear from some of my regular friends on RUclips when I post it. Take care and keep in touch!
Thank you! I just happened to be eating an ice cream bar a few minutes before watching this. Up until now I've been using a ruler & pencil, to weigh penniesk which is no picnic. Took me all of two minutes to make one of your contraptions. Many thanks.
A creative solution, for sure! There are gram scales with 0.01 precision for $15-20. I've got one I use for many things, including determining the composition of 1982 Cents. In fact, I just checked my Amazon Order history and found out I've been using this little scale for 8-years now, which comes out to a couple bucks a year if it croaks today. Just saying, if you bought one, you'd certainly find multiple uses for it. Especially since you're the creative sort! Thumbs up on the video!
Thanks for checking in and for the suggestion! I may have to order one of those scales--I didn't realize they were so inexpensive. If I could cash in all the zinc pennies in the jar that might just about cover the cost, haha.
One solution Ive been thinking of is to just throw them all in a tub and start vibrating/shaking them. In theory, the copper ones should sink to the bottom, while the zinc ones should float to the top. From there it should be easier to hand sort them, but might be a good way to do it in bulk. For me, Im actually more interested in the zinc ones since they can be melted on a stove and used to cast stuff.
Cool idea. I wonder if the different densities would be enough for it to work, such that with shaking the copper ones would "sink" to the bottom.... If you try it please let me know! That would be a really fast way to sort them. And I never thought of casting things out of the zinc ones. Sounds fun.
@@WesternEclectic If I ever get my hands on enough pennies and- well.. *something that can make them vibrate* - then I'll definitely test it out and let you know!
So I understand that solid copper is worth more than a zinc plated copper but does that mean that all the pennies before 1982 are worth their weight and copper? And if so I can only assume that it would take a lot of them to even make any money with it? What am I missing because I'm new to the hobby of collecting coins and I'm trying to figure out the basics here.
Hi Brian, welcome, and thanks for checking in. I would say all those pre-1982 pennies are worth at least... $0.01 each, haha! Seriously though, I don't think there's much point in trying to get raw copper value from old pennies (even if it is legal to melt them down, which I'm not certain about). Furthermore, I may have simplified things a bit with some of my comments--I believe even pre-1982 pennies still contain a small percentage of zinc. I just like to save the old copper pennies because I think they're neat, and not for any particular monetary gain. Why do you ask? How does this relate to starting out in coin collecting for you?
@@brian8431 I see. One resource I like for getting a value estimate for a specific coin (for example, a 1922 D penny) is cointrackers.com. That should at least give you an idea. Good luck!
@@WesternEclecticin the last economic crash a copper penny melt value was over a nickel. When we get to the point we can melt the pre 82 pennies I suspect the actual copper value will be closer to 10 cents each. I've been saving them for years. Not going to get rich but have massed $200 face value copper pennies. Will be a nice little payday.
@@Jeffrey-p6lI agree copper seems to only go up in my opinion and I'm an electrician so I've seen prices ever since I was 16 years of age to this day 36 years of age.....metal alloys also seem precious in the US because now days allow of the metal is mined in foreign land . .so hoard hoard and hoard is what I believe 😅
Hi Naomi, good question. Yes, I just used a dab of hot glue to attach the penny. If you glue the penny first, you then glue the middle piece (the fulcrum) right where it balances best. In reality, the dab of glue doesn't weigh much so it shouldn't affect the balance much anyway.
i did the balance thing with the 82 cents...but it was a pain...so i spent 10 bucks and bought a coin scale...now its much easier and faster checking the coins...i hope you checked the 82 cents for varieties an 82d copper small date is worth big bucks
Good to know you can get an accurate scale without having to spend much money; another viewer recently mentioned this too. I knew there are small and large date 1982 cents, but I didn't know any were worth much more than $0.01. I'll have to go back and check mine again! Anyway, thanks for checking in.
Good point! I usually find that the copper pennies hold up pretty well; the zinc ones get really corroded though. They just don't make 'em like they used to, haha.
... Just flip it next to your head/ear. The coins that say:" tingggg!" Are copper. The ones that go " tnk." Those are zinc. Tinc is zinc. This is much faster and easier to do unless you have severe hearing loss.
@@hydrophobicbathtowel6816 This works! The two pennies definitely have a different sound if I listen carefully. Thanks for sharing this. Reminds me of how a silver quarter has a lovely sound when flipped, whereas a more modern clad quarter just has kind of a dull thud. I guess in addition to having more buying power, our money used to sound better too, haha. Thanks again!
@@WesternEclectic you should notice after a while that they also feel different. Its not something i can explain, nor would i rely on it, but ive noticed after a year or two of flipping to identify the sound i can accurately guess if a coin is solid copper as soon as i pick it up in my fingers. Im not sure what quality i am feeling? Perhaps because of the different densities of metals i am noticing a slight variation in weight? Idk, because i cant pin point the exact reason i dont rely on this feel, but its fun to guess the metal and then flip for sound to see if i got it right. Kinda game-ifies the process and makes it more fun. How you flip will affect how strong the sound is too which can make things easier. A nice strong flick of your thumb with the tip of your nail will give a louder clearer sound to listen to.
@@hydrophobicbathtowel6816 Good point and sometimes I'm convinced there is a different feel too (I thought maybe I was just imagining that until I read your reply). The zinc ones just feel kind of... Huh, I guess I can't describe it either, haha. I was going to say "slippery" but that's not quite right. Of course, some of the ones I find metal detecting don't need much examination: If there are literally holes eroded into the coin, it's zinc. Boo.
@@WesternEclectic i think our fingers are more sensitive than we realize. Its possible we are just picking up on the difference in weight relative to volume of space and so our mind is sort of abstractly and vaguely assigning a difference in density to each material which would have been a useful skill years ago when we were still making things out of rock and sticks. Being able to intuitively select the best raw materials to make tools with would have saved alot of time and energy and increased chances of survival. Just a theory though.
That 1983 penny at 3.00g is worth up to 23.000$ if you do your studies then you'd know that 😂 it's accurate enough belive it! You have a small fortune there!!
That would be awesome! Although unfortunately I'm almost certain it's just the level of precision in my scale; the 1983 example I was using felt lighter in my hand and had that zinc "feel" to it. But I never knew there was such a thing as a 1983 copper penny, and you're right, they are very valuable! Thanks for letting me know. One of my favorite things about RUclips is that I'm able to keep learning new things when folks take the time to comment and enlighten me. Thanks again!
Yep, that's definitely the easiest way! But sometimes the date is hard to read (this often happens with coins found metal detecting), and if the date is 1982 it won't help since they made both copper and zinc pennies that year.
Creative, but way too time consuming. If you place no value on your time, then go ahead and do this. If you do place a value on your time, go ahead and buy one of those inexpensive little detectors and separators, where you rapidly drop pennies through. It’s so much faster. Cheers!
That's a good point: This method would definitely be tedious if you had a lot of pennies to sort. But for whatever reason I enjoy taking the time to go through my metal detecting coin finds, even though it's not very efficient. (If I was concerned about using my time efficiently, I probably wouldn't spend it going metal detecting in the first place, haha.) Anyway thanks for watching and commenting; I will have to look into the coin separators you mentioned. Take care!
Great observation! I tried this and yes, the copper pennies seem to have more of a ring to them compared to the zincs. I'm not sure I'd get it right 100% of the time (especially for pennies in poor condition), but for the most part there does seem to be a noticeable difference. Thanks for pointing this out! Also, it seems like our money sounded a lot better in the past. If you flip a silver quarter in the air with your thumb, it has a beautiful ring to it. A modern clad quarter just has kind of a dull thud. Anyway thanks for posting!
Right, that works most of the time! But if the date is 1982 that doesn't help. And oftentimes (especially with coins found detecting) the date is unreadable.
I've thought through several methods to do this, and in one swell foop you've rendered every single one of my ideas utterly pointless. Nice work!!
Haha! If it's any consolation, it took me quite a while to realize this would be an easy solution.
Or as some people say, fell swoop.
THAT is perfect!!!
I've got 10 large Maxwell House coffee cans and 5 large Folgers coffee cans full of pennies.
I'll be sorting pennies and....................
You guessed it, drinking coffee ☕! 😂
☕☕☕🪙🪙🪙🪙☕☕☕🪙🪙🪙🪙☕☕☕😆.
Thank You for the awesome project.
Everytime I toss a few pennies in a can, I think about sorting out the coppers.
I do always look for wheats, indians and Canadians. Thank You, again.
Have a great week and be safe out there.
That's great! I remember going through old cans and jars of pennies looking for wheats; I think that's what got me interested in coins in the first place. Good luck with the sorting and coffee drinking, haha! And thanks for checking in. It's fun to make a new video, and it's always great to hear from some of my regular friends on RUclips when I post it. Take care and keep in touch!
👍🏼 An elegant approach! May you all manage to find a 1909 S-VDB on your next coin-sorting mission! 😎✌🏼
Thanks Mike. Yes, that would be a great find!
It's happened in California
This made me chuckle. Always love to see the simple things triumph.
Thank you! I just happened to be eating an ice cream bar a few minutes before watching this. Up until now I've been using a ruler & pencil, to weigh penniesk which is no picnic. Took me all of two minutes to make one of your contraptions. Many thanks.
Haha, glad to hear it worked for you (plus you got to enjoy some ice cream and recycle the stick!). Thanks for checking in to let me know.
A creative solution, for sure!
There are gram scales with 0.01 precision for $15-20. I've got one I use for many things, including determining the composition of 1982 Cents. In fact, I just checked my Amazon Order history and found out I've been using this little scale for 8-years now, which comes out to a couple bucks a year if it croaks today. Just saying, if you bought one, you'd certainly find multiple uses for it. Especially since you're the creative sort!
Thumbs up on the video!
Thanks for checking in and for the suggestion! I may have to order one of those scales--I didn't realize they were so inexpensive. If I could cash in all the zinc pennies in the jar that might just about cover the cost, haha.
So simple, exactly what I need. Thanks.
Nice. I can feel the difference 95% of the time.
Nice job 😊😊😊
Two thumbs way up!!!
One solution Ive been thinking of is to just throw them all in a tub and start vibrating/shaking them. In theory, the copper ones should sink to the bottom, while the zinc ones should float to the top. From there it should be easier to hand sort them, but might be a good way to do it in bulk.
For me, Im actually more interested in the zinc ones since they can be melted on a stove and used to cast stuff.
Cool idea. I wonder if the different densities would be enough for it to work, such that with shaking the copper ones would "sink" to the bottom.... If you try it please let me know! That would be a really fast way to sort them. And I never thought of casting things out of the zinc ones. Sounds fun.
@@WesternEclectic If I ever get my hands on enough pennies and- well.. *something that can make them vibrate* - then I'll definitely test it out and let you know!
Great idea. Thank You.
Well..sir you are Brilliant! Thanks, gonna try this!
So I understand that solid copper is worth more than a zinc plated copper but does that mean that all the pennies before 1982 are worth their weight and copper? And if so I can only assume that it would take a lot of them to even make any money with it? What am I missing because I'm new to the hobby of collecting coins and I'm trying to figure out the basics here.
Hi Brian, welcome, and thanks for checking in. I would say all those pre-1982 pennies are worth at least... $0.01 each, haha! Seriously though, I don't think there's much point in trying to get raw copper value from old pennies (even if it is legal to melt them down, which I'm not certain about). Furthermore, I may have simplified things a bit with some of my comments--I believe even pre-1982 pennies still contain a small percentage of zinc. I just like to save the old copper pennies because I think they're neat, and not for any particular monetary gain. Why do you ask? How does this relate to starting out in coin collecting for you?
@@WesternEclectic i just wanted to know what I am looking for especially for Valuable coins so I know which ones to hold onto and get appraised.
@@brian8431 I see. One resource I like for getting a value estimate for a specific coin (for example, a 1922 D penny) is cointrackers.com. That should at least give you an idea. Good luck!
@@WesternEclecticin the last economic crash a copper penny melt value was over a nickel. When we get to the point we can melt the pre 82 pennies I suspect the actual copper value will be closer to 10 cents each. I've been saving them for years. Not going to get rich but have massed $200 face value copper pennies. Will be a nice little payday.
@@Jeffrey-p6lI agree copper seems to only go up in my opinion and I'm an electrician so I've seen prices ever since I was 16 years of age to this day 36 years of age.....metal alloys also seem precious in the US because now days allow of the metal is mined in foreign land . .so hoard hoard and hoard is what I believe 😅
Wow very nice collection coins❤❤❤🙏🙏
This is genius
really cool solution! engineer brain
Great idea!!!!
Wondering how the penny is attached to the stick. Glue? If so, would that affect how it balances?
Hi Naomi, good question. Yes, I just used a dab of hot glue to attach the penny. If you glue the penny first, you then glue the middle piece (the fulcrum) right where it balances best. In reality, the dab of glue doesn't weigh much so it shouldn't affect the balance much anyway.
So how do you separate the copper from the zinc pennies?
i did the balance thing with the 82 cents...but it was a pain...so i spent 10 bucks and bought a coin scale...now its much easier and faster checking the coins...i hope you checked the 82 cents for varieties an 82d copper small date is worth big bucks
Good to know you can get an accurate scale without having to spend much money; another viewer recently mentioned this too. I knew there are small and large date 1982 cents, but I didn't know any were worth much more than $0.01. I'll have to go back and check mine again! Anyway, thanks for checking in.
@@WesternEclectic
no problem...good luck..i hope you find one!
mass/weight works well, but what if it is crusted over with dirt/barnicals which cannot be cleaned off... those have mass also, and can tip the scale.
Good point! I usually find that the copper pennies hold up pretty well; the zinc ones get really corroded though. They just don't make 'em like they used to, haha.
A 3 gram 1983 isn't supposed to be possible. If it wasn't the dirt making the extra weight, it's a find.
I think it was just the error of my scale, but I should double check that penny!
Wicked cool!
Brilliant
👍🏾
... Just flip it next to your head/ear. The coins that say:" tingggg!" Are copper. The ones that go " tnk." Those are zinc. Tinc is zinc. This is much faster and easier to do unless you have severe hearing loss.
@@hydrophobicbathtowel6816 This works! The two pennies definitely have a different sound if I listen carefully. Thanks for sharing this. Reminds me of how a silver quarter has a lovely sound when flipped, whereas a more modern clad quarter just has kind of a dull thud. I guess in addition to having more buying power, our money used to sound better too, haha. Thanks again!
@@WesternEclectic you should notice after a while that they also feel different. Its not something i can explain, nor would i rely on it, but ive noticed after a year or two of flipping to identify the sound i can accurately guess if a coin is solid copper as soon as i pick it up in my fingers. Im not sure what quality i am feeling? Perhaps because of the different densities of metals i am noticing a slight variation in weight? Idk, because i cant pin point the exact reason i dont rely on this feel, but its fun to guess the metal and then flip for sound to see if i got it right. Kinda game-ifies the process and makes it more fun. How you flip will affect how strong the sound is too which can make things easier. A nice strong flick of your thumb with the tip of your nail will give a louder clearer sound to listen to.
@@hydrophobicbathtowel6816 Good point and sometimes I'm convinced there is a different feel too (I thought maybe I was just imagining that until I read your reply). The zinc ones just feel kind of... Huh, I guess I can't describe it either, haha. I was going to say "slippery" but that's not quite right. Of course, some of the ones I find metal detecting don't need much examination: If there are literally holes eroded into the coin, it's zinc. Boo.
@@WesternEclectic i think our fingers are more sensitive than we realize. Its possible we are just picking up on the difference in weight relative to volume of space and so our mind is sort of abstractly and vaguely assigning a difference in density to each material which would have been a useful skill years ago when we were still making things out of rock and sticks. Being able to intuitively select the best raw materials to make tools with would have saved alot of time and energy and increased chances of survival. Just a theory though.
You might have a transition error 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
That 1983 penny at 3.00g is worth up to 23.000$ if you do your studies then you'd know that 😂 it's accurate enough belive it! You have a small fortune there!!
That would be awesome! Although unfortunately I'm almost certain it's just the level of precision in my scale; the 1983 example I was using felt lighter in my hand and had that zinc "feel" to it. But I never knew there was such a thing as a 1983 copper penny, and you're right, they are very valuable! Thanks for letting me know. One of my favorite things about RUclips is that I'm able to keep learning new things when folks take the time to comment and enlighten me. Thanks again!
You could always look at the date
Yep, that's definitely the easiest way! But sometimes the date is hard to read (this often happens with coins found metal detecting), and if the date is 1982 it won't help since they made both copper and zinc pennies that year.
Perfect . Lol🎉
That 1983 that weighs 3.0 grams is an error penny
That's possible (and that would be great!), but I think it's just that my digital scale isn't all that accurate....
home run
To be honest some 1983 are copper
Just bounce the pennies dude...
Copper pennies have a more distinct "ting" compared to zinc pennies
@@preludepatrick You're right! Although when I find them metal detecting and they're dirty/corroded they all tend to just kind of go "thud," haha.
Creative, but way too time consuming. If you place no value on your time, then go ahead and do this. If you do place a value on your time, go ahead and buy one of those inexpensive little detectors and separators, where you rapidly drop pennies through. It’s so much faster. Cheers!
That's a good point: This method would definitely be tedious if you had a lot of pennies to sort. But for whatever reason I enjoy taking the time to go through my metal detecting coin finds, even though it's not very efficient. (If I was concerned about using my time efficiently, I probably wouldn't spend it going metal detecting in the first place, haha.) Anyway thanks for watching and commenting; I will have to look into the coin separators you mentioned. Take care!
Just drop the penny on the table the sound is different between zinc and copper
Great observation! I tried this and yes, the copper pennies seem to have more of a ring to them compared to the zincs. I'm not sure I'd get it right 100% of the time (especially for pennies in poor condition), but for the most part there does seem to be a noticeable difference. Thanks for pointing this out! Also, it seems like our money sounded a lot better in the past. If you flip a silver quarter in the air with your thumb, it has a beautiful ring to it. A modern clad quarter just has kind of a dull thud. Anyway thanks for posting!
Or just look at dates. lol.
Right, that works most of the time! But if the date is 1982 that doesn't help. And oftentimes (especially with coins found detecting) the date is unreadable.
Have you ever read thousands of dates ? .. You're the funny guy ,and how will you see mid year changes?😂 guy
@@WesternEclectic Few people that made this comment, clearly didnt watch the video. You explained it...