Penny Strategy For Sorting And Reviewing

First go through them all and make stacks.
I sort them by stacks of 10 years.
All 1900 to 1909 in one stack
1910 - 1919 in the next and so on.

Then I get each stack starting with the earliest and work on just that stack at a time, sorting by mint marks in rows where they are all obverse and facing the same way.
1900
1901
1902
1903 etc

What you want to from there is up to you. If you want to keep the best for a set, it is easy with them laid out like that. Flip them over and do the same again checking the reverses. Put your good dates and higher grades aside.

I can only tell you the best way I have figured out how to start a sorting session.

As I hate double or triple handling coins when sorting, it just adds so much to the time needed, and anything that saves time works for me, so I made myself a sorting sheet using Excel as per the image.

I numbered each cell starting with 10 in top left corner, (the reason for that being Australian coins were first minted in 1910). I glue the sorting sheet to heavy cardboard for longevity. Each cell on the sheet is approx 27 X 39 mm, and fits nicely on an A4 sheet, with approx 5 or 6 mm border all round. It did take me a little while to get it right, but I reckon it's well worth it.

The starting year can be anything you like, by sticking to 10 across and 5 down, and just using the last 2 digits, you can cover any year possible, in any century. It gets a bit crowded when sorting large coins, but for US 1 Cents, 2 stacks per section should be easily do-able.

I don't start having problems until I'm doing the larger denominations, $1 20c & 50c which over here are approx 25, 28 and 31 MM respectively in diameter. A 2nd page is handy when doing larger coins.

Due to US coins having Mint Marks, you will probably have to adapt the sheet to fit your requirements, but even using more than 1 sheet is better than handling coins 2 or 3 times each IMO.

Have as many plastic ziplock bags as there will be years and MM's of coins close by with little bits of paper to write the year & MM on, so when any cell becomes starts to fill up, pop the coins in a bag & tag them.

I would love any feedback if you decide to try this method even if you need to alter it to suit your needs.

Exactly what I do Crazy. You can sort piles in minutes. Do enough of them and your hands know where to go without engaging the brain