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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Ryedale




What do we do after easing ourselves in slowly to anything? We say fuck it and dive in. Let me introduce you to our newest acquisition... The Ryedale apprentice. After the realization that hand sorting just wasn't going to cut it me and Silviu looked at a few different options for sorting pennies. After some searching on http://www.realcent.org we found the solution to our troubles. It is a machine that sorts the zincs from the copper pennies. The website for the machine is http://www.ryedalecoin.com/. The website itself leaves something to be desired, but the transaction could not of gone smoother. We ordered the Ryedale apprentice (500$), two extension hoppers (20$), and a spare wheel (10$). Add on 20$ for shipping and we spent 550$ total on it. Paid for it through Paypal on a sunday and had it on something like Wednesday. Much faster than we both expected honestly.

Now lets review why we actually care about copper pennies.  According to http://www.coinflation.com/ the price of copper as of today is 4.5140/ lb.  That would mean the 400$ of copper pennies that I have right now is worth 1,191.31$ if I could legally melt it for the copper.  The pennies will always be worth the .01 that I paid for them at the bank.  There is a ban right now, but for many reasons I believe that it will soon be lifted.  There was a similar ban of the melting of silver coins in the 70's when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the market.  The mint wants to ensure that there are enough copper pennies around in circulation and not have to worry about people taking a good number of pennies out.  So basically I am buying a precious metal at a 66% discount.  Pretty sweet huh?

I waited till we were both in my garage to pull the machine out of the box. When we opened it Silviu was a bit underwhelmed by it. Thought that it should have been bigger or something like that. However that quickly changed. We had around 300$ ish worth of pennies that we had bought from a private party earlier in the week. That is another story that deserves a write up and one that will go down as a potential failure. We thought that those pennies should last us most of the week. When we had first researched buying a machine we misread that it would sort 18.00$ of pennies an hour. Ok we thought that is still way better than we can do by hand. Imagine our surprise when the machine sorted through all 300$ worth of pennies in something like 2 1/2 hours. We thought that we had gotten seriously taken for fools by the people we got the pennies from. Then we pulled our heads out of our asses and realized that it actually sorts 180.00$ worth of pennies an hour. Which is substantially more to say the least. This amazing little machine is much faster than we realized. It really ploughs through stacks of pennies. We thought our problem would be that we had more pennies than we had time to actually run the Ryedale, but we soon found that the problem was that we didn't have enough pennies to keep this little machine running. We have so much time that we run all of our pennies through twice. Although the machine is so accurate that it barely misses anything.

The man who created the Ryedale asks everyone who purchases the unit to be discrete about how the machine functions, but basically the machine checks the pennies with an example coin and either rejects or accepts the coin. Whatever the method it is extremely accurate.

There is only one real downside to this machine at all. It jams... quite frequently. The main way is that coins double feed going down the slide, which can sometimes be quite tricky to get out. Coincidentally at about the same time as we bought this, I had taken to fixing ipods for people so had bought a electrical tweezers set. This is the exact set that I bought Aven Technik Electronics Precision Tweezers Set 6 Pcs
I am extremely happy with them. They work amazing for any job that I have put them to and they making clearing jams from our Ryedale much simpler. Also I bought the recommended lube that came with the instructions and have applied it accordingly.  If you use this lube for anything you definitely want to get it with the needle nozzle applicator.  It will get over everything and you honestly only need one drop.  This stuff should be used sparingly for sure or it will just accumulate more crud.


It does greatly help to reduce jams, but this machine is still fairly jam prone. The only real other problem that I have had with the machine is that it does not specifically sort for wheaties. You can get it to somewhat select for some years, but it is somewhat touch and go.

I have some more pictures and maybe a video to add to this post that I plan on putting up later this week so check back in if you want to see this bad boy in action or my beautiful face.



Overall this machine is an amazing thing and quite necessary if you value your time or want to get serious about pulling coppers out of circulation. If you are interested acquiring some coppers we do sell various sized lots of pre 1982 pennies depending on the spot price of copper. You can buy them several ways. We have auctions of copper and other interesting things at our ebay store: http://stores.ebay.com/Thrifting-My-Education


OR


You can contact me through this website or shoot me an email at : johnashmore89@gmail.com


I can take paypal or credit card.

51 comments:

  1. Wow, looks good, I can use this but I can't pay it.

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  2. I really enjoy hearing about your adventures trying to get rich.
    I always go from "lol these guys are so crazy" to "why didn't I think of this before?"

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  3. man thats something.

    the printed value of a coin is less than its value as a material!

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  4. Maybe if I had more money!

    No but this is great work!

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  5. Heh, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is!

    Following and supporting.

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  6. wow, if i only had the money...

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  7. Haha, the blog title made me chuckle.
    I don't think copper coins are pure copper so probably not worth as much :(

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  8. :D
    If my parents gave me the money I'll try it...

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  9. Inever knew a machine like this existed. Very interesting.

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  10. i could need something like this, to sad that i dont have the money

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  11. That ryedalecoin site design made my eyes bleed. The machine itself looks useful though.

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  12. Wow this is interesting. I heard about this before from a friend but forgot completely about it!

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  13. Sounds like a get rich scheam. Good luck if you actually try it.

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  14. wonder if this is possible with the € cents too

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  15. The euro is too new I believe to have a good metallic content, but foreign coins from back in the day have copper, silver, and gold in them like old US one. I am just not farmiliar with them.

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  16. Crazy little machine! I've seen some similar things. Good luck, hope they lift the ban and you can nab some money!

    Garage Zoku

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  17. @ stuff that works

    The copper content of a pre 1982 penny is 95%. The example I gave of the 400$ is calculated with only the actual copper in the pennies.

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  18. Haha this is awesome! I do hope this works out well for you!

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  19. That's....actually very interesting. Although, I'll be amazed if they lift the ban on melting them down. Does every country have similar bans? And are you sure it's illegal to melt them? The very site you linked says no, right here:

    http://www.coinflation.com/is_it_illegal_to_melt_coins.html

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  20. very interesting. thanks for the info!

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  21. looks good!
    added you to my coffee round too...

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  22. I didnt realse copper was that much!

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  23. Cool idea, wish i had the money to do it though

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  24. @Erasmus I did read that as well, but there is still some debate as to if you can or not melt yet. All I really know is that the general consensus is that you can not and no one is melting there pennies for scrap copper yet.

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  25. If only i had some spare money...

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  26. wish i could, intersting none-the-less
    ill be following this blog for sure

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  27. it's too expensive though, $550??????

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  28. I'm not very convinced with this...

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  29. Everything to do with making my life easier is something I want. But it's too expensive.

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  30. with this mindset you'll sure get richer before you die trying

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  31. Well know are they going to KNOW that the blob off copper you give them once sported Lincolns face?

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  32. @ Rachel That's why they call it an investment!

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  33. Pretty cool. Don't think I have enough pennies though :P

    I can hold all the money I have in one hand! xD

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  34. great...if I only had the money!!

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  35. A little expensive, don't you think?

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  36. So what's the endgame with this thing? Do you sell the copper for scrap, make something out of it, or is there some intermediary step?

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  37. @ Mike Yang Thanks for asking. I try to sell lots of already sorted copper pennies for the short term. The long term goal is that they will lift the melt ban and we can sell it for scrap.

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  38. This is brilliant. I tip my hat to you sir.

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