Counting Change...huge Volunteer Project

Coppercoins,

I can help you since I live in south texas maybe 100 miles north of houston texas. If you need me I can go houston and buy serval fedboxs of coins or coins from where I live out the rurul place called huntsville texas.

I will need some help with 1982 pennys trying find out they are coppor or zinc. I will also need help on 1974 years. Maybe you help figure out what on those. I have an 1970 large date and small date , 1960 small dates cents in my books to look at for you.


Most fed boxs from my smalltown come from houston texas federal reserve bank down. They bring them up here once an week in trucks thats bank of america. My other banks I use such as Wells fargo get coins from an cash service company around here. I have 3 or 4 bank accounts from serval banks I buy coins from.

Most all boxes I go thru from houston are tons d mints and very few philly coins in nickel boxs or penny boxes. I have trouble finding any philly coins here to finish sets. I sometimes wish I had an freind from east coast who could ship me fedboxs on coins from places like new york or boston since they are closer to philly mint where I can get philly coins no problem becides all d mints like I always find.

Let me know if I can help you

Chevrolet454ss

One last thing thanks for helping in past on lots my coins I asked you about.

I would be glad to help, e-mail sent

Biokemist - That would be good. I might end up asking others if they would do two batches. So far from three sources I have fewer than 100 volunteers...was hoping for at least 300, shooting for 600. If people double up, it would help.

A post I made in a different forum to answer questions there, worth reposting here so you can see more detail about this project...

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For those interested who cannot participate due to time constraints, I fully understand and appreciate your comments and replies. One thing that might be possible, and I'm not yet sure exactly how to go about it, is that you could purchase and send the $50 to me and I could go through them on your behalf. I have two 10 year olds who like sorting through change and could help. I could pay the $50 plus priority flat rate shipping if your area of the country is under-represented.

What do I mean by that? Well, if you live in Akron, Ohio and I don't have any volunteers from Eastern Ohio or Western PA then your area would be important to count in, so I'd like to get your coins and go through them here. I figure if I paid each non-participant willing to ship the coins $60, then that should cover the boxes and shipping.

To all: Timeline...I would like to have this done and completed by the end of the year. I personally am going to take a road trip and cover the following myself: Enid, OK; Tulsa, OK; Wichita, KS; Rolla, MO; Jonesboro, AR; Fayetteville, AR, Joplin, MO; Springfield, MO. I also currently have around 50 volunteers from all around the country who have replied to my requests within the past 16 hours. I figure that number could double in the next month, but even that still isn't enough.

I might also request that some volunteers count two batches from their areas if that area is under-represented and they have time. I intend on taking this by population by state, something like delegates in the electoral college. There are 538 spots in the electoral college, and I need 600 spots covered, a difference of 62. If I add in the percentage difference to each state, I would come close to the number I need from each state. Going by the electoral college alone, I would need 55 people from CA; 9 from CO; 11 from my home state of MO...plus the percentage already mentioned. My problem is going to be coming up with 4 from HI and 3 from AK. Of course Guam, Puerto Rico, USVI, and anyplace else that uses US currency would be welcome to participate.

Regarding government grants...I have my fiance going through that process. She'll let me know if it's possible and will take care of the application, etc.

Regarding whether this information will be shared - of course! That's the whole point. I will be entering the results into a database and publishing it on my site. I will also use the data for other publications and invite others to use it with credit to me. This, as far as I see it, is a public study. The only thing that's mine alone is the idea.

As for the accuracy of the data - Well, no data can be completely accurate unless your control includes the entire population of 30 billion items...but that's impossible. So, we do the next best thing and assume a few things, knock our sample down and use math to come up with the results. I see no reason who it wouldn't "work".

Regarding knocking out samples because they don't meet the average - I beliee this is the wrong way to go about it. With a group 600 strong, we're likely to run into rolls of solid date coins, rolls of wheats, and even a few indians here and there. I will be including them all in the study simply because everyone will be instructed to go to the bank and ask for two $25 boxes of cents...nothing special. What they are given will represent what would have gone into circulation in their area that day, so that's what should be counted. If it's $50 in wheat cents, so be it. I will request that nobody get the "jug" out of their closet, or count a bag of coins that have been sitting in their shop for two years. The test sample MUST come from CURRENT circulation.

Thanks for the messages so far, and yes...I am crazy (for those who wonder). I really want to see the results and know what we have out there, and this is really the only way to do it.

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Most of the time a teller would be glad to find $25 boxes of "circulated" coins for you. Generally, my experience dictates that it's more difficult to find a "new" box of coins than a "circulated" box of coins. Many banks wrap their incoming coins, and many more order them from Brinks or Wells Fargo, and they come as they come - circulated or uncirculated.

Part of the point here is not to ask for anything special - just two $25 boxes of cents they were planning on using that day in the tills. If it comes out that the whole box is 2007P, then you have half your count done. If there are six rolls worth of wheats in the boxes, then so be it. I am looking for what's in circulation, not what's issued or what's "normal".

I did one of these back in 1999, and one of the participants got a $50 bag from their bank. It happened to be a 1968S sealed bag. I didn't count that because they specifically asked that it be a $50 canvas bag, not completely understanding my request. Back in the 90s, we still called $50 in cents a "bag" no matter what it actually came in. Well, now we don't have the bags any more, and banks get their cents in $25 boxes...so my request is that you ask your bank for two boxes of cents that they had planned on using soon.

It's perfectly fine to describe to them what we are doing, and I am sure any bank would understand and give you what we need.

On a different note, I have started the process of researching a grant to do this. If it works out, I may be able to use some of the grant money to have people ship boxes to me from under-represented areas of the country so we can get a good clean overall picture.

Hello coppercoin,

I am trying to fill my Whitman Lincoln Cents Album (1, 2, 3) so I will glad to help. I live and work in Oakland-San Francisco area and my family live in Orange County so I can cover Northern and Southern California, unless someone want to take one of the two places.

Keep me post.

Depending on when this starts, I can do northern and southern Michigan, I travel for work sometimes and have a project coming up where I will be driving all around MI. Let us know how to reply to you for multiple places ie: send another email with the other place, or send a new one with both places listed.