Thanks to a temporary capital shortage, I had to pass on the quarter examination for now. Instead, I went back to pennies - and saw the ratio go up considerably. Evidently, us Canadians are becoming acclimatized to a C$ that hovers around par, if not slightly above par, with respect to the US$.
Out of a box of 2,500 cents, gotten on December 27th, I got 188 U.S. pennies. That's a ratio of 7.52% - more than 1% greater than the ratio I got early in the month.
Interestingly, the number of old wheat cents fell during this round. Instead of the nine I got from the last box of pennies, I only got five; none were older than 1941. The number of Canadian 'scarcities' also dropped somewhat, from 50 to 42. Only four of them were minted during the reign of King George VI, Queen Elizabeth's predecessor.
There was also one foreign coin stuck in the lot: a 2 centiEuro piece, which would be worth about 2.8 cents Canadian according to this currency calculator. Believe it or not, despite a zinger or two, I have found that the non-American foreign coins that substitute for a Canadian coin typically have the same or greater value than the Canadian coin they've replaced.
So, if you happen on one and pass it along in the stream o' trade, you might as well not feel guilty over doing so (although I myself would have qualms passing the British penny off as a C-nickel...)
Friday, December 28, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Dime Sifting - Drought Gone
In a way, the result I got for the last box of dimes I ordered up shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. According to the label on the box, it came from the Toronto Transit Commission coffers; a Toronto city councillor is on record as a complainer about the number of American coins put in the TTC collection box. (The chair of the TTC, though, didn't see separating the two nationalities' coins as being cost-effective. Since the C$ is now back down to par with the US$, it was a good call on his part.)
To get back to the more immediate subject, I got 2,500 dimes from the same source that I got all the other coins I've sifted through: the Royal Bank of Canada, Yonge & Cranbrooke branch in Toronto. The last box I got, obtained when the C$ was slightly higher than it is as of the time of this post, contained no American dimes at all. This box, on the other hand, contained 64 American dimes, yielding a ratio of 2.56% Americans in the entire lot. Somewhat ironically, the number of American dimes was greater than the number of American nickels I had gotten last week, from a box of 2,000 of the latter. (The ratio of American nickels to all of them, though, was higher: 2.95%.)
Scarcities and oldies are much harder to find in the dime and quarter boxes than they are in the penny and nickel boxes. This disparity occurs because every dime and quarter minted before 1968 is composed of 92.5% and 80% silver (respectively): some of the 1968 issues contain 50% silver. At current silver exchange rates, this composition implies that a pre-'68 and post-1919 Canadian dime and quarter would be worth more than nine and eight times its face value (respectively), and a 1968 silver coin would be worth somewhere in the neighbourhood of five times its face value. The comparable dates for U.S. coins are pre-1965, when American dimes and quarter had 90% silver content. (If you want the specifics, click the links in this paragraph, as well as this one, which gives you the current silver spot price.)
In this box, I was lucky enough to find one: a 1963-date Canadian silver dime. It was heavily circulated with a common date, so its only value springs from the silver it contains. That value, on the other hand, is close to a dollar.
The other oddity I got was a dime-sized coin from the Cayman Islands, with face value of five cents and date of 2002. According to the same currency converter I used last week, that coin is (theoretically) worth about 6.1 Canadian cents.
You win some, you lose some. Merry Holidays/Happy Christmas to all.
To get back to the more immediate subject, I got 2,500 dimes from the same source that I got all the other coins I've sifted through: the Royal Bank of Canada, Yonge & Cranbrooke branch in Toronto. The last box I got, obtained when the C$ was slightly higher than it is as of the time of this post, contained no American dimes at all. This box, on the other hand, contained 64 American dimes, yielding a ratio of 2.56% Americans in the entire lot. Somewhat ironically, the number of American dimes was greater than the number of American nickels I had gotten last week, from a box of 2,000 of the latter. (The ratio of American nickels to all of them, though, was higher: 2.95%.)
Scarcities and oldies are much harder to find in the dime and quarter boxes than they are in the penny and nickel boxes. This disparity occurs because every dime and quarter minted before 1968 is composed of 92.5% and 80% silver (respectively): some of the 1968 issues contain 50% silver. At current silver exchange rates, this composition implies that a pre-'68 and post-1919 Canadian dime and quarter would be worth more than nine and eight times its face value (respectively), and a 1968 silver coin would be worth somewhere in the neighbourhood of five times its face value. The comparable dates for U.S. coins are pre-1965, when American dimes and quarter had 90% silver content. (If you want the specifics, click the links in this paragraph, as well as this one, which gives you the current silver spot price.)
In this box, I was lucky enough to find one: a 1963-date Canadian silver dime. It was heavily circulated with a common date, so its only value springs from the silver it contains. That value, on the other hand, is close to a dollar.
The other oddity I got was a dime-sized coin from the Cayman Islands, with face value of five cents and date of 2002. According to the same currency converter I used last week, that coin is (theoretically) worth about 6.1 Canadian cents.
You win some, you lose some. Merry Holidays/Happy Christmas to all.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Nickel Sifting - Ratio Slightly Up
This is one finding that I didn't expect until I checked my earlier records. I got 2,000 nickels from the same source as last time, the Royal Bank of Canada branch at Yonge and Cranbrooke in Toronto, and found that 59 of them were American nickels. The last time I went through a box of 2,000, I got 54.
This increase shouldn't be that surprising. As us Canadians become used to parity with the American dollar, there's little or no point in getting rid of American change after coming back from a trip to the States. There's been more of them lately, although not much more according to Statistics Canada: "'A relatively small rise in the Canada/U.S. exchange rate in the late 1980s and early 1990s provoked a huge increase in same-day auto trips to the US: Since 2002, the largest appreciation of the exchange rate ever has accompanied a relatively small rise in same-day auto trips,' Statistics Canada analyst Francine Roy said in the report."
This isn't the first time I've had my common sense confounded (even though the StatsCan report only covers day trips.) As the first entry disclosed, I found no U.S dimes and only one U.S. quarter in my first series of runs, even though the Canadian dollar was slightly above par at the time I got the respective boxes. I suspect that the only reason I got the U.S. quarter was because it was a commemorative that looked like a Canadian one.
As far as oldies are concerned, I got a close-to-uncirculated 1967 rabbit nickel, fifteen 1964 nickels (a few only lightly circulated), eight 1963s, five 1962s, three 1961s, one 1960 and one 1956-date. The last ten nickels were twelve-sided.
I also found three oddities, all circulated: a 1993 1p coin from the U.K.; a Bermudian nickel from 1988; and, a real oddity which I had to use a few searches to track down: a 1998 50-fils coin from the United Arab Emirates. It looks like the second picture of three on the page that I used to identify the thing, except the one I got is heavily circulated.
I also looked up the worth of those coins using this currency converter. One conversion was unsurprising: the British pence was worth a little more than 2 cents Canadian. The Bermudian nickel, on the other hand, was pegged at a little more than 5 cents Canadian. The third conversion, which was a surprise to me, showed that a 50-fils UAE coin (equal to 0.5 dirham) coverts into 13.8 cents Canadian.
This 'profit', I need hardly say, is theoretical.
This increase shouldn't be that surprising. As us Canadians become used to parity with the American dollar, there's little or no point in getting rid of American change after coming back from a trip to the States. There's been more of them lately, although not much more according to Statistics Canada: "'A relatively small rise in the Canada/U.S. exchange rate in the late 1980s and early 1990s provoked a huge increase in same-day auto trips to the US: Since 2002, the largest appreciation of the exchange rate ever has accompanied a relatively small rise in same-day auto trips,' Statistics Canada analyst Francine Roy said in the report."
This isn't the first time I've had my common sense confounded (even though the StatsCan report only covers day trips.) As the first entry disclosed, I found no U.S dimes and only one U.S. quarter in my first series of runs, even though the Canadian dollar was slightly above par at the time I got the respective boxes. I suspect that the only reason I got the U.S. quarter was because it was a commemorative that looked like a Canadian one.
As far as oldies are concerned, I got a close-to-uncirculated 1967 rabbit nickel, fifteen 1964 nickels (a few only lightly circulated), eight 1963s, five 1962s, three 1961s, one 1960 and one 1956-date. The last ten nickels were twelve-sided.
I also found three oddities, all circulated: a 1993 1p coin from the U.K.; a Bermudian nickel from 1988; and, a real oddity which I had to use a few searches to track down: a 1998 50-fils coin from the United Arab Emirates. It looks like the second picture of three on the page that I used to identify the thing, except the one I got is heavily circulated.
I also looked up the worth of those coins using this currency converter. One conversion was unsurprising: the British pence was worth a little more than 2 cents Canadian. The Bermudian nickel, on the other hand, was pegged at a little more than 5 cents Canadian. The third conversion, which was a surprise to me, showed that a 50-fils UAE coin (equal to 0.5 dirham) coverts into 13.8 cents Canadian.
This 'profit', I need hardly say, is theoretical.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Penny Sifting - Ratio Stable
After getting 2,500 pennies from the same location that I got the last box from - the Yonge and Cranbrooke (Toronto) branch of the Royal Bank of Canada - I found that the ratio of American pennies in the Canadians remained stable. This batch yielded 159 out of 2,500, or 6.36%. This shouldn't be that surprising, as the pennies aren't really worth anyone's while to separate by nationality.
I myself wouldn't be surprised to learn that this ratio prevailed when the C$ was well below par. U.S. pennies are just too hard to separate from Canadian ones, as the diameters are almost exactly the same; the only difference is in the width. The U.S penny is 0.1 mm thicker than the Canadian penny. It would cost several hundered dollars to whip up a simple sieve with a slit width that's larger than the Canadian cent's but smaller than the U.S. cent's - and that's the only mechanical device that can separate the two. Any benefit just ain't worth the cost.
As far as manually separating them is concerned, the cost in time is prohibitive too. So, they stay mixed.
One of the eye-catchers while doing this examination is rarities (or "scarcities") that pop up while going through the regular coins. These unusually old coins almost certainly have only face value, due to them being well-circulated, but they also have interest value for coin collectors. In this box of 2,500, I found 9 of the old U.S. wheat cents, including one with a 1917 date - a 1917 D, to be precise. Yep, that one was minted back when the United States was just about to enter World War 1. The others had dates ranging from 1945 to 1957. Of course, all of them were heavily circulated; the 1917 one has a grade of "Good" - a low grade, in other words.
Fifty of the Canadian pennies were also recognizably old. Seven of those were 1967 rock-doves. Thirty-four of the others were pre-1965, with the old picture of young Queen Elizabeth II on the reverse. One of these, a 1963, was almost uncirculated but had a scratch [just below the "3" on the date.] That scratch probably explains why it wound up in the circulation mill. 2 of the 1964s were only lightly bronzed. The other seven had King George VI on the back; the oldest of these was from 1938.
It's not hard to find one oddity in a box of 2,500. In the last one I went through, I found a penny die - unstruck.
I myself wouldn't be surprised to learn that this ratio prevailed when the C$ was well below par. U.S. pennies are just too hard to separate from Canadian ones, as the diameters are almost exactly the same; the only difference is in the width. The U.S penny is 0.1 mm thicker than the Canadian penny. It would cost several hundered dollars to whip up a simple sieve with a slit width that's larger than the Canadian cent's but smaller than the U.S. cent's - and that's the only mechanical device that can separate the two. Any benefit just ain't worth the cost.
As far as manually separating them is concerned, the cost in time is prohibitive too. So, they stay mixed.
One of the eye-catchers while doing this examination is rarities (or "scarcities") that pop up while going through the regular coins. These unusually old coins almost certainly have only face value, due to them being well-circulated, but they also have interest value for coin collectors. In this box of 2,500, I found 9 of the old U.S. wheat cents, including one with a 1917 date - a 1917 D, to be precise. Yep, that one was minted back when the United States was just about to enter World War 1. The others had dates ranging from 1945 to 1957. Of course, all of them were heavily circulated; the 1917 one has a grade of "Good" - a low grade, in other words.
Fifty of the Canadian pennies were also recognizably old. Seven of those were 1967 rock-doves. Thirty-four of the others were pre-1965, with the old picture of young Queen Elizabeth II on the reverse. One of these, a 1963, was almost uncirculated but had a scratch [just below the "3" on the date.] That scratch probably explains why it wound up in the circulation mill. 2 of the 1964s were only lightly bronzed. The other seven had King George VI on the back; the oldest of these was from 1938.
It's not hard to find one oddity in a box of 2,500. In the last one I went through, I found a penny die - unstruck.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
First Post - Ratios From The Recent Past
This blog is devoted to my occasional sort-throughs of Canadian change to see how much American coinage is found therein. I do so by buying a box or so of coins from a chartered bank, paper-rolled so as to sift out all-new rolls. (Those are encased in plastic.) I then sort through them to find how many American coins of the same denomination there are. In addition, I keep tabs on any oddities and rarities.
I started the sift-throughs before the C$ reached parity, although most of them were made after parity was reached. The ones I have done so far give a good indication of what the coinage state was at the time that doubt existed about the values crossing. Here's what I found:
Out of 2500 pennies, 157 (6.28%) were American.
Out of 2000 nickels, 54 (2.7%) were American.
Out of 2500 dimes, none were American! Given that the C$ was already above par at the time I got them, this finding was a surprise. Back when the C$ was 80-90 cents US, I was used to seeing an American dime in my pocket change from time to time.
Out of 2000 quarters, only one was American, and it was a commemorative quarter that resembled the various Canadian ones. I found no regular Eagle quarters.
The box of 2,500 pennies was obtained on Friday, September 28th, 2007. The box of 2,000 nickels was gotten on Monday, October 1st of the same year. The dimes were gotten on or around October 9th, and the quarters were obtained on Monday, October 15th. All of them were gotten through the good offices of the Royal Bank in Toronto, Yonge and Cranbrooke branch.
I started the sift-throughs before the C$ reached parity, although most of them were made after parity was reached. The ones I have done so far give a good indication of what the coinage state was at the time that doubt existed about the values crossing. Here's what I found:
Out of 2500 pennies, 157 (6.28%) were American.
Out of 2000 nickels, 54 (2.7%) were American.
Out of 2500 dimes, none were American! Given that the C$ was already above par at the time I got them, this finding was a surprise. Back when the C$ was 80-90 cents US, I was used to seeing an American dime in my pocket change from time to time.
Out of 2000 quarters, only one was American, and it was a commemorative quarter that resembled the various Canadian ones. I found no regular Eagle quarters.
The box of 2,500 pennies was obtained on Friday, September 28th, 2007. The box of 2,000 nickels was gotten on Monday, October 1st of the same year. The dimes were gotten on or around October 9th, and the quarters were obtained on Monday, October 15th. All of them were gotten through the good offices of the Royal Bank in Toronto, Yonge and Cranbrooke branch.
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