What is a collectible penny to look for? Nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar? The details matter.

Can’t really answer that with a lot of detail but one thing for sure not to miss are the silver coins. Old quarters and dimes that are 80% silver are worth considerably more than face value. They’re also easy to spot. I almost guarantee you’ll have a few.

Do you put silver coins in your Christmas pudding? It was traditional to put silver sixpences in the pudding.

A five gallon bucket – probably 80 lbs of coin. Perhaps 15,000 individual coins in the bucket.

Valuable coins aside, do you really want to waste the time to handle each coin, to read the date and denomination, in order to determine one coin’s value?

Can the time and effort it will take possible be worth the potential gain?

@elbanditoroso

I thought it might be interesting.
But since you put it that way…

Do go through and find the silver.

Get a book from a collector’s supply shop.

^^ Good idea.
I just General in Fluther might be good for one or two pearls of wisdom

I’d be surprised beyond my ability to adequately express it here to find that you have any silver American coins in change that you’ve accumulated over the past 20 years. But assuming that you might have, say, a half-dozen coins of that type, and assuming that those dimes, quarters and half-dollars are worth, oh, 100 times the face value of the coin (they’re not worth that much more; I’m just making a point), would it be worth your time and aggravation to sort through 80# of coinage for a return that could maybe at the outside return an additional $25 – $50 or so over the face value of the coins already there?

And does spending your time in that way appeal to you?

If so, then have at it, and good luck to you.

On the other hand, it is always possible that you could have some coins of real rarity and value – but probably not for the metal content. That is, you could have a double-struck coin that got by the Mint inspectors and into circulation. Those are rare and valuable because of the rarity. Or alternatively, a coin of a particular vintage from a particular mint – and in very good to excellent condition – which may command a premium.

But in those cases, unless you already know what you’re looking for and have a good eye as to the coin’s grade, you’d either miss it or mis-value it – or simply not be able to command its true value in a trade with a professional coin dealer anyway, because of your lack of knowledge and experience – so you’d be spending a lot of time for a very speculative and uncertain return.

My recommendation would be to sell the bucket by weight to a coin dealer or collector who does have those interests, and spare yourself the aggravation (and added expense) of hand-sorting, counting or rolling the coins. Or give the whole mess to a young person who has those interests.

It takes seconds to identify the silver, you can literally do it as you pour the coins in the counting machine tray. I usually at least find a dime or quarter.

@josie you can pick the silver out easily if you pour the coins onto an old sheet on a large table or floor. Spread the coins as thinly as possible over the surface, and go over them with a bright light. The silver coins will jump right out at you. And they (curiously) will appear white compared to the newer coins. You can achieve this with a mere flashlight in a dark room.

You can also just stack them and look for ones without a copper center.

@ARE_you_kidding_me – if he had a couple of hundred coins, that might work. But he has (estimate) 15,000 coins. That’ a lot of stacks.

It’s not hard, you grab a handfull, stack them and then toss them in the sack if there is no silver. Done it plenty of times.

Silver quarters. My husband received two just a few months ago. He noticed they were heavy, and so I looked at the side and it was all silver. The heavier quarters that most of us are familiar with who were born in the late 60’s and 70’s had two colors of metal on the side of the coin. I looked up when quarters changed, and no longer were silver anymore and the year was 1964. Indead these two quarters were before that.

The thing is it’s illegal to melt down money to make profit on the metal.

You could look up copper pennies, that copper is worth more than the penny.

Uncirculated coins are worth much more, but it’s a sure bet none of your coins would qualify for that.

I think just look for unusual coins, and then when you see what you have in that pile, then google about those specific coins.

Half dollars, Quarters, and dimes before 1964 are silver. Save them for sure. You tell quickly by stacking them up and looking at the edges. 1965 and up are clad.and you can see the copper layer in the middles. The silver ones are a lighter color and really stand out.

Pennies 1982 and earlier are 95% copper. They weigh 3.0 grams each. After 1982 they were made of 97% Zinc.and weigh 2.5 grams each. I save pre-82 pennies. I know it’s not worth it, but I do.

That is the extent of my coin sort.