Many, many coin flips

My order for 600 coin flips came yesterday. I got 200 small dollar, 100 quarter, 100 nickel, 100 penny and 100 dime sized. They came in a yellow container, which doubles as a holder for the coined and folded flips. I’ve begun the task and already my had has a crap from flattening the staples. I’m only 212 into it and already I have nearly exhausted the supply of quarter and nickel sized flips. I’ve completed the small dollar sized coins, but have at least 1050 of them still available. I’m not sure why I got so many of that size. At least they will come in handy if I ever acquire Presidential or Sacagawea coins.

The dilemma I am running into is that I have two coins- a 1936 buffalo nickel and a 1912 liberty nickel- that I do not want to put into a flip. I want to be able to hold them in my hand and look at them without the protective mylar keeping me from the details. There are three pennies that I’m gonna put into flips- an Indian head, a ‘53 wheatie and a very shiny steel. The steelie has a bit of junk on the reverse (left side), but it is an ‘s’. I imagine it will never amount to be worth anything more than a few cents, but it is pretty to look at.

Most of the coins I am currently putting into the flips are from the uncirculated lot. There are quite a few very nice specimens. It looks like I’ll have just enough flips to finish carding all of the coins in the bin.

After this, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold out before wanting another pile of coins to go through! Maybe I can do an audit before I succumb. That will definitely help.

Pennies, pennies everywhere

For the last few years, I have, out of habit, been keeping pre-1983 pennies aside, since they are made of more copper than their zinc progeny. After reading an article about an easy way to go through circulation coins to find hidden gems, I decided I was going to do it for myself.

The idea is to take $20 to the bank and purchase 2,000 pennies. Wouldn’t that be fun to go through. Who knows how many wheaties I might come across, or how many hundreds of copper cents would show up. Sadly, none of the banks closest to home could accommodate my request, since I am not an account holder. My first thought was ‘booooo’.

I’m not entirely sure how preventing a citizen from obtaining 40 rolls of pennies is in the interest of Homeland Security, but whatever. Hopefully my friend has an account at one of the banks so they can finally accommodate my need to sort through piles of coins.