Mr. Rawles,
The window is closing to pick up Canadian pennies is quickly closing.
The Royal Canadian Mint will no longer ship pennies to banks on February 4, 2013 and at the same time, banks will no longer “sell” pennies to their customers. I did a run on about a dozen banks today, and some already out right refused to sell them to me.
It’s worth noting that unlike the American government who debased their pennies in 1982, the Canadian government fully debased the Canadian from 95% copper to copper washed zinc in 1996, so a circulated box of Canadian pennies has between 30-40%, high copper pennies with a melt value ranging from 1.96 – 2.56x face value. http://www.coinflation.com/canada/
Even if it’s not worth your time to sort them now, these boxes are quite handy for weighing down gun safes or creating a plain view hiding spot. I have stack of 40 boxes of pennies and I doubt a thief in a hurry would ever bother looking at the boxes on the very bottom, considering the other, more convenient, higher value goods I store them with.
Already on eBay there are ridiculous auctions for uncirculated, 2012 Canadian pennies [1] (2012 being the year last year the penny was minted), even though these pennies are just copper washed steel, with buyers actually buying 50 cent rolls for $5-to-$15 (shipping included). – N.L.