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.