I just ordered my first boxes of coins from my bank.

W.K.F. and J Lloyd Young are onto something. I ordered 2 boxes of pennies (2 x $25, 5000 coins total) and 2 boxes of nickels (2 x $100, 4000 coins total) from my bank.

Whooey.

That's exhausting work. I'm used to searching just 4 or 10 rolls at a time, so I can enjoy almost every coin with a loupe and find RPM's and such in sub-MS examples. But looking at coins by the thousands, it's all about dates and gems.

I made it through a box each of pennies and nickels this weekend. Nothing too exciting about the pennies - a 1951 S in XF was the best. I did swap out some coins in my albums for choice coins from c. 1960. My copper hoard also grew. The percentage of copper coins in circulated rolls lately seems to be about 20%, at least in my neck of the Midwest.

The nickels were a little more exciting. Nothing quite so stellar as the 1965 MS66 I found and graded a few months ago. But here's a partial list:

Buffalo nickel, well worn, no date

1943 P war nickel

1946 S

1949 S (!)

2009 D (2 of them)

2010 P & D (quite a few, but not nearly in the mix like 2008 and 2007 were a few years ago)

I continue to be amazed at the mint's quality control lately. Out of 2000 coins, I didn't notice a single major error.

And yet, earlier today, in one unopened roll of 1973 nickels, was a split planchet (pre-strike ... 4.3/5.0 grams, so perhaps there's enough detail for it not to come back ungradeable).

Searching circulated rolls of nickels is rough going. Those are some HEAVY coins, they really get dinged up in circulation and in bank handling. Perhaps I'm tossing more than I should back in the barrel. I looked at the Heritage Auction archives for 1973 MS66 (5)FS nickels. They were all graded PCGS, and they look terrible. Steps are decent, but the dings in key fields look like tire treads run over six-pack cardboard in the street gutter.

The multi-holder naming contest is ongoing. See my previous post.