Pennies And More Pennies. Too Many Pennies!

Forget about going through 10's of thousands of pennies with a magnifying glass or scope looking for errors & varieties unless you want to know what it feels like to have a conniption ! I would just pick out all the wheat cents and any Memorial cents that look nice and red with no heavy scratches or hits . If you don't have one already , pick up ''The Red Book '' guide to United States coins . That will help you out with most of all you need to know . Just don't put too much thought into the prices their giving . Most are high inflated prices , certainly not prices you would expect to get if you sell any of your Lincolns .

Glad those days are behind me!



to the CCF!

I would second T-BOP's suggestion - separate out the wheats and anything that is full on red. Everything else goes into the "worth a cent" pile.

I think it really depends on how much time you want to spend searching through those pennies. If you like to do this then by all means go for it. But most people would get overwhelmed with all those pennies and just look for the wheats. Or copper ones before 1982 (and some during 1982). That is what I do. I know some of the varieties or doubled dies are worth a lot but that is a lot of work to find those. You have to be really dedicated to go that far.

Sounds like you have something to keep you busy for awhile. I just went through 3 gallons of pennies this past Spring. What I did was, first, remove all the wheat cents and 1982 and older Memorial cents. In 1982 mid-year they changed composition from mostly copper, so all pre-1982 have a melt value of 2 cents each, and they are becomming harder to find. All 1983 and newer are junk, unless you can find an error coin with a magnifying lens and this will drive you batty. Then go through all the ones you've pulled out, sorting by value or however you like. Basically, the copper pre-1982 Memorial coins have only copper value unless they look uncirculated. 1982 is an interesting year because not only did the composition change but you also have large date and small date coins of both compositions. The center top 1982 coin in your first close-up appears to be a small date coin.

You guys are killing this new member ,errors & varieties , ( look for 82-D small date coppers )? Are you kidding me ! Correct me if I'm wrong but I think OP is a female . Let her have some fun with all those pennies . No need to blow her eyes out scrutinizing every one of those Lincolns .

The easiest way I found to sort through pennies is,

Turn them all face down.

Make a pile of wheat backs and a pile of the new shield cents. Wheat backs go until 1958. The shield cents go from 2009 and on, so that will sort out quite a bit first.

That leaves you with 1959-2008, which you can split in half at the 1982 mark with a scale.

Then once that's finished, since you have a couple piles sorted, it'll be much easier going by groups of 10 years, while taking out Canadian and other money.

Edit - Copper years, 59-69, 70-82. Then for the zinc 82-89, 90-99, 00-08. Sorting them in groups of 10 years or weighing them first doesn't matter. I just don't like going through the big pile of 80s twice to pull out the copper cents, so I use the scale.

After that, you can sort everything out by year and mintmarks, checking each one if you really want to get into it that far.

It took a couple hours to sort out $50 in groups of 10 years by myself, if that gives you an estimate. I toss the piles into ziplock baggies, so they're not all over the table.

have fun sorting them. hope you will find some valuable pennies. don't forget to get a small scale so you can weight the pennies to confirm those you are not sure if they made of mostly copper or zinc.