Reading this thread - and not doing any research myself - I believe the total Lincoln cents (well over half a trillion) will exceed the Queen's total. Cheers, RickO
ok. i think this is the next step to unseating abe which until proved otherwise, i am sticking with. i've been perusing canadian coinage and while on a lot of denominations, those mintages aren't too impressive across the board and to topple abe and his 3.5/4.5 BILLION per year for several years, elizabeth is going to have to start posting some big numbers.
QEII - b. 1926
Canada, Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, East Caribbean States, Jamaica, Turks Caicos, Falkland Islands, St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha, South Africa, Rhodesia, East Africa, Nigeria, Mauritius, Seychelles, Hong Kong, Malaya British Borneo, Australia, New Zealand, Tokelau, Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, and the UK
on a side-note, i have enjoyed listening/reading/watching about QEII's coin/stamp collection(s) and her buy/sell/trade history for a little while now.
I did a quick search in my Krause World coin book for 1900 to 2000 for "Elizabeth II" I had 7,982 hits. That is about how many different "type" coins there are of hers during that time. Then there were 20 years after that.
So she would win the most different types hands down. However, I have done more looking and I take back what I said earlier. I don't think anyone could compete with the number of Lincoln cents we are cranking out every year.
Most commonwealth countries that use QE 2 coins are small. (Places like India and South Africa do not anymore). The big ones:
UK - 67 million
Canada - 38 million
Australia - 25 million
New Zealand - 5 million
That's only 135 million people. If you add in the small countries, you aren't going to be up to half the population of the U.S.
With the cents/pennies disappearing in Canada and other countries, Abe trounces the total mintages. And, given that Abe has been at it since 1909 and QE2 only since 1952, it's no contest.
@jmlanzaf said:
And, given that Abe has been at it since 1909 and QE2 only since 1952, it's no contest.
qeii born 1926. i read something about her appearing on notes at age 8. i don't know but does that mean that she hasn't been on coins until 1952? i don't know for a fact offhand, despite all the foreign coins i've handled but that doesn't seem right.
but if that is true that her coinage didn't start until 1952, for my part, i'm not sure i see any more purpose to doing calculations as 2/3 of the total mintage of abes is the old stuff, despite the billions being pumped out and that is saying a lot.
good grief. i just looked to verify some of the comments i've made and i saw that in 1982, we pumped out nearly 11 billion abes !!!! a possibly arrogant thought crossed my mind. i wonder if any other likeness can even compete with just that 1 year?
i really don't know the numbers but i'm gonna have a look at jefferson, roosevelt and washington even though i think someone already commented they aren't close.
@jmlanzaf said:
And, given that Abe has been at it since 1909 and QE2 only since 1952, it's no contest.
qeii born 1926. i read something about her appearing on notes at age 8. i don't know but does that mean that she hasn't been on coins until 1952? i don't know for a fact offhand, despite all the foreign coins i've handled but that doesn't seem right.
but if that is true that her coinage didn't start until 1952, for my part, i'm not sure i see any more purpose to doing calculations as 2/3 of the total mintage of abes is the old stuff, despite the billions being pumped out and that is saying a lot.
good grief. i just looked to verify some of the comments i've made and i saw that in 1982, we pumped out nearly 11 billion abes !!!! a possibly arrogant thought crossed my mind. i wonder if any other likeness can even compete with just that 1 year?
i really don't know the numbers but i'm gonna have a look at jefferson, roosevelt and washington even though i think someone already commented they aren't close.
QE2 was not on coins as a child. The Royal Family did occasionally appear on postage stamps, although rarely, as commemoratives. She also appeared on a couple banknotes, but that was not common.
@jmlanzaf said:
And, given that Abe has been at it since 1909 and QE2 only since 1952, it's no contest.
qeii born 1926. i read something about her appearing on notes at age 8. i don't know but does that mean that she hasn't been on coins until 1952? i don't know for a fact offhand, despite all the foreign coins i've handled but that doesn't seem right.
but if that is true that her coinage didn't start until 1952, for my part, i'm not sure i see any more purpose to doing calculations as 2/3 of the total mintage of abes is the old stuff, despite the billions being pumped out and that is saying a lot.
good grief. i just looked to verify some of the comments i've made and i saw that in 1982, we pumped out nearly 11 billion abes !!!! a possibly arrogant thought crossed my mind. i wonder if any other likeness can even compete with just that 1 year?
i really don't know the numbers but i'm gonna have a look at jefferson, roosevelt and washington even though i think someone already commented they aren't close.
Per the Royal MInt, there are about 30 billion UK coins circulating (post 1968 decimal). If you scale that, it would equal about 40 billion issued since 1952. If you go by population for the rest of the commonwealth, that would put the global total at 80 to 100 billion.
It looks like annual QE2 coinage exceeds Jefferson nickels. You've got near 2 billion Jeffs. But, just UK and Canada issue around 2 billion QE2 coins.
@jmlanzaf said:
It looks like annual QE2 coinage exceeds Jefferson nickels. You've got near 2 billion Jeffs. But, just UK and Canada issue around 2 billion QE2 coins.
i liked the rest of that post but i looked over canadian cents with qeii and while nowhere near abe, certainly has at least several billion as there are many years 100m were minted. i'm certainly not splitting hairs at this point as it has been enjoyable all of us working towards this challenging goal. thanks so much for saving me time/effort for the jeffs.
while the point hasn't been proven 100%, i think the answer is clear.
would make for a nice affordable type set having 1 issue for each qeii.
@Tomthecoinguy said:
I did a quick search in my Krause World coin book for 1900 to 2000 for "Elizabeth II" I had 7,982 hits.
i started that search too but forgot about it and closed the file. i'll have to check again as that sounds like an awfully lot of issues. not sure why else that name would appear that many times though except for individual issues.
edited to add
finally got my search to go through. mine shows 2300/2400 or so. fwiw
@Tomthecoinguy said:
I did a quick search in my Krause World coin book for 1900 to 2000 for "Elizabeth II" I had 7,982 hits.
i started that search too but forgot about it and closed the file. i'll have to check again as that sounds like an awfully lot of issues. not sure why else that name would appear that many times though except for individual issues.
edited to add
finally got my search to go through. mine shows 2300/2400 or so. fwiw
The vast majority of which are issues numbering in the thousands or tens of thousands. Add them all up and you get a rounding error when compared to a half trillion Lincolns. Almost like forgetting to include the 463 million Illinois state quarter into Abe's total.
Most commonwealth countries that use QE 2 coins are small. (Places like India and South Africa do not anymore). The big ones:
UK - 67 million
Canada - 38 million
Australia - 25 million
New Zealand - 5 million
That's only 135 million people. If you add in the small countries, you aren't going to be up to half the population of the U.S.
With the cents/pennies disappearing in Canada and other countries, Abe trounces the total mintages. And, given that Abe has been at it since 1909 and QE2 only since 1952, it's no contest.
If you assume the number of coins produced per person in all 4 countries is similar and extrapolate the 1953-2020 NZ mintages to cover them all, you end up with 91.5 billion.
Modern mintages are much higher than Victorian mintages. I would be very surprised if there weren't more Abes than Victorias.
Victoria's portrait was on the coinage of more countries than QEIIs.
Yes, but the mintages were much smaller except for India. And even British India coinage amounts to under 10 billion coins. If you are talking about coin types, then it is Victoria. If you are talking about total coins minted, Victoria & QE2 together don't add up to Lincoln cents.
For example, in 1900, the total mintage of UK pennies and half-pennies is 40 million. 1900 three pence were 10 million. And if you go back to 1850, the total mintage of 3 pence is only 4.5 million and pennies and half pennies were barely over 1 million
Most commonwealth countries that use QE 2 coins are small. (Places like India and South Africa do not anymore). The big ones:
UK - 67 million
Canada - 38 million
Australia - 25 million
New Zealand - 5 million
That's only 135 million people. If you add in the small countries, you aren't going to be up to half the population of the U.S.
With the cents/pennies disappearing in Canada and other countries, Abe trounces the total mintages. And, given that Abe has been at it since 1909 and QE2 only since 1952, it's no contest.
If you assume the number of coins produced per person in all 4 countries is similar and extrapolate the 1953-2020 NZ mintages to cover them all, you end up with 91.5 billion.
That's about what I got starting from Canada & UK and doing the same extrapolation. I got a range of 80 to 100 billion. Or, as we may now refer to it 0.2 Abes!!!
@jmlanzaf said:
It looks like annual QE2 coinage exceeds Jefferson nickels. You've got near 2 billion Jeffs. But, just UK and Canada issue around 2 billion QE2 coins.
i liked the rest of that post but i looked over canadian cents with qeii and while nowhere near abe, certainly has at least several billion as there are many years 100m were minted. i'm certainly not splitting hairs at this point as it has been enjoyable all of us working towards this challenging goal. thanks so much for saving me time/effort for the jeffs.
while the point hasn't been proven 100%, i think the answer is clear.
would make for a nice affordable type set having 1 issue for each qeii.
Sorry for not being clearer, but I was talking annual production in that last paragraph.
@jmlanzaf said:
It looks like annual QE2 coinage exceeds Jefferson nickels. You've got near 2 billion Jeffs. But, just UK and Canada issue around 2 billion QE2 coins.
i liked the rest of that post but i looked over canadian cents with qeii and while nowhere near abe, certainly has at least several billion as there are many years 100m were minted. i'm certainly not splitting hairs at this point as it has been enjoyable all of us working towards this challenging goal. thanks so much for saving me time/effort for the jeffs.
while the point hasn't been proven 100%, i think the answer is clear.
would make for a nice affordable type set having 1 issue for each qeii.
There are people that collect the Commonwealth that way, both coins and stamps. To stay affordable, you may have to avoid some of the commemorative and bullion issues which occasionally are pretty scarce. I'm not talking million dollar coins, but you've got quite a few thousand dollar coins.
A set of British Commonwealth banknotes is also very attractive and interesting.
If we turn the discussion into whose coins have the most face value QE wins hands down!
I haven't checked...but from what I'm reading good ole Abe probably does have the most coins minted. How many of those are zincolns and what is their attrition rate?
the post i made earlier i think it was 33%, maybe 37 as i never found the 2019/2020 numbers and i'm sure they aren't low.
interesting point about value, exchange rates and inflation adjusted.
honestly, with some of the key date unc lincs, i've venture a strong guess linc is also FAR above qeii.
i do confess to knowing virtually nothing about qeii's high-value coins. so there is a chance i could stand corrected. i guess next up is perusing the price guide, simply for this exercise and fun only.
the post i made earlier i think it was 33%, maybe 37 as i never found the 2019/2020 numbers and i'm sure they aren't low.
interesting point about value, exchange rates and inflation adjusted.
honestly, with some of the key date unc lincs, i've venture a strong guess linc is also FAR above qeii.
i do confess to knowing virtually nothing about qeii's high-value coins. so there is a chance i could stand corrected. i guess next up is perusing the price guide, simply for this exercise and fun only.
@amwldcoin said:
If we turn the discussion into whose coins have the most face value QE wins hands down!
I haven't checked...but from what I'm reading good ole Abe probably does have the most coins minted. How many of those are zincolns and what is their attrition rate?
i know there is a lot of doubt out there in the world and to some extent rightly so but did someone really feel it necessary to scrape the rim of that monster to see if it is plated? ><
I'll go with Abe. If we put the population of the Commonwealth countries at, say, 140m and compare that # to the rough (eyeball) number of Lincoln's produced in just the last 15 years of about 100b, that's 714 Lincoln's for each person in the Commonwealth. The Royal mint estimates 29.6b coins extant in the UK. UK pop about 67.3m, one gets about 440 coins per person. No contest.
I would also note the possible two interpretations of the OP's question. Everybody's talking about mintages, but as we all know, coins don't all last forever. Many are destroyed and melted down. So, the OP's question has two possible interpretations:
Which one, Abe or QE2, has had the largest number of coins struck with their portrait?
Which one, Abe or QE2, has more coins with their portrait currently on earth right now?
That first question is all about the raw mintages. The second one incorporates attrition rates. Because it seems clear to me that the vast majority of those coins with Lincoln's portrait struck since 1909 no longer exist - they've been withdrawn and melted down, privately melted, or (for Zincolns) have simply dissolved away in the rain.
I would postulate that the answer to the first question is indeed Abraham Lincoln. But I suspect the answer to the second question might be Queen Elizabeth II, because of the generally lower attrition rate. The other complicating factor affecting survivial is that all of the countries where QE2 has issued coinage, have had in place aggressive programs to withdraw old and obsolete coins for destruction - Canada has its Alloy Recovery Program, Australia went decimal in 1966 and withdrew 1 and 2 cent pieces in 1990, and Britain went decimal in 1970 and reformed most of the denominations in 1992. Lincolns have never been aggressively and officially destroyed. The ability of QE2 to win this second question depends largely on the thoroughness of the withdrawal processes.
The big unknown is, of course, how many "lost Lincolns" are actually surviving in caches and hoards to be found later, and how many are corroding away and degrading to the point of being effectively destroyed.
Of course, the mintage stats are going to continue favouring Abe, now that Her Majesty has passed away and they'll stop making coins with her picture on them, while Abe's stats will continue to rise for as long as circulating pennies continue to exist, probably at least a few more decades.
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one. Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
@BryceM said:
Yup, a half-trillion Lincolns. 57 for every person on the planet.
Where are they all??
Many are in landfills.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I'm sure there are several hundred in my house. Nobody pays attention to things with no intrinsic value. When I get Zincolns in change, I usually just throw them in the trash. They're a waste of my time, and everyone else's. If you make a decent living, spending one second of your time to look at the coin is a loosing proposition. When an entire box of them doesn't pay for a sit-down dinner we've entered the realm of ridiculousness. Sad.
Comments
I am sticking with Abe and I don't think it is even close.
Reading this thread - and not doing any research myself
- I believe the total Lincoln cents (well over half a trillion) will exceed the Queen's total. Cheers, RickO
I think you are low on your estimate.
Join the fight against Minnesota's unjust coin dealer tax law.
ok. i think this is the next step to unseating abe which until proved otherwise, i am sticking with. i've been perusing canadian coinage and while on a lot of denominations, those mintages aren't too impressive across the board and to topple abe and his 3.5/4.5 BILLION per year for several years, elizabeth is going to have to start posting some big numbers.
guiness book of world records. how did we not just start here. doh
QEII - b. 1926
Canada, Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, East Caribbean States, Jamaica, Turks Caicos, Falkland Islands, St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha, South Africa, Rhodesia, East Africa, Nigeria, Mauritius, Seychelles, Hong Kong, Malaya British Borneo, Australia, New Zealand, Tokelau, Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, and the UK
on a side-note, i have enjoyed listening/reading/watching about QEII's coin/stamp collection(s) and her buy/sell/trade history for a little while now.
I did a quick search in my Krause World coin book for 1900 to 2000 for "Elizabeth II" I had 7,982 hits. That is about how many different "type" coins there are of hers during that time. Then there were 20 years after that.
So she would win the most different types hands down. However, I have done more looking and I take back what I said earlier. I don't think anyone could compete with the number of Lincoln cents we are cranking out every year.
Join the fight against Minnesota's unjust coin dealer tax law.
I think it is Abe by a mile.
Most commonwealth countries that use QE 2 coins are small. (Places like India and South Africa do not anymore). The big ones:
UK - 67 million
Canada - 38 million
Australia - 25 million
New Zealand - 5 million
That's only 135 million people. If you add in the small countries, you aren't going to be up to half the population of the U.S.
With the cents/pennies disappearing in Canada and other countries, Abe trounces the total mintages. And, given that Abe has been at it since 1909 and QE2 only since 1952, it's no contest.
qeii born 1926. i read something about her appearing on notes at age 8. i don't know but does that mean that she hasn't been on coins until 1952? i don't know for a fact offhand, despite all the foreign coins i've handled but that doesn't seem right.
but if that is true that her coinage didn't start until 1952, for my part, i'm not sure i see any more purpose to doing calculations as 2/3 of the total mintage of abes is the old stuff, despite the billions being pumped out and that is saying a lot.
good grief. i just looked to verify some of the comments i've made and i saw that in 1982, we pumped out nearly 11 billion abes !!!! a possibly arrogant thought crossed my mind. i wonder if any other likeness can even compete with just that 1 year?
i really don't know the numbers but i'm gonna have a look at jefferson, roosevelt and washington even though i think someone already commented they aren't close.
QE2 was not on coins as a child. The Royal Family did occasionally appear on postage stamps, although rarely, as commemoratives. She also appeared on a couple banknotes, but that was not common.
Total number of Jefferson nickels is over 50 billion.
https://jeffersonnickel.org/jefferson-nickel-mintage/#:~:text=The Jefferson Nickel has been,Jefferson Nickels have been produced.
Per the Royal MInt, there are about 30 billion UK coins circulating (post 1968 decimal). If you scale that, it would equal about 40 billion issued since 1952. If you go by population for the rest of the commonwealth, that would put the global total at 80 to 100 billion.
It looks like annual QE2 coinage exceeds Jefferson nickels. You've got near 2 billion Jeffs. But, just UK and Canada issue around 2 billion QE2 coins.
i liked the rest of that post but i looked over canadian cents with qeii and while nowhere near abe, certainly has at least several billion as there are many years 100m were minted. i'm certainly not splitting hairs at this point as it has been enjoyable all of us working towards this challenging goal. thanks so much for saving me time/effort for the jeffs.
while the point hasn't been proven 100%, i think the answer is clear.
would make for a nice affordable type set having 1 issue for each qeii.
i started that search too but forgot about it and closed the file. i'll have to check again as that sounds like an awfully lot of issues. not sure why else that name would appear that many times though except for individual issues.
edited to add
finally got my search to go through. mine shows 2300/2400 or so. fwiw
Victoria's portrait was on the coinage of more countries than QEIIs.
What Canada lost on the cents for QE2 images, they more than make up for in Silver Maple Leafs.
The vast majority of which are issues numbering in the thousands or tens of thousands. Add them all up and you get a rounding error when compared to a half trillion Lincolns. Almost like forgetting to include the 463 million Illinois state quarter into Abe's total.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Found the NZ mintages. 1953-present total number of coins all denominations = 3.388 billion. 2004-D Lincolns = 3.38 billion.
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/-/media/ReserveBank/Files/Statistics/tables/f4/hf4.xlsx?revision=e50519a0-fa48-425c-8cda-d4ead2698065
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
If you assume the number of coins produced per person in all 4 countries is similar and extrapolate the 1953-2020 NZ mintages to cover them all, you end up with 91.5 billion.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
QE2 was not on coins as a child. The Royal Family did occ> @thefinn said:
Yes, but the mintages were much smaller except for India. And even British India coinage amounts to under 10 billion coins. If you are talking about coin types, then it is Victoria. If you are talking about total coins minted, Victoria & QE2 together don't add up to Lincoln cents.
For example, in 1900, the total mintage of UK pennies and half-pennies is 40 million. 1900 three pence were 10 million. And if you go back to 1850, the total mintage of 3 pence is only 4.5 million and pennies and half pennies were barely over 1 million
That's about what I got starting from Canada & UK and doing the same extrapolation. I got a range of 80 to 100 billion. Or, as we may now refer to it 0.2 Abes!!!
Sorry for not being clearer, but I was talking annual production in that last paragraph.
There are people that collect the Commonwealth that way, both coins and stamps. To stay affordable, you may have to avoid some of the commemorative and bullion issues which occasionally are pretty scarce. I'm not talking million dollar coins, but you've got quite a few thousand dollar coins.
A set of British Commonwealth banknotes is also very attractive and interesting.
ya. there are some classic comems as well but i figured the lincs would take the series all on their own
is that for all types. pds/proof/silver etc?
glad we have another player here. what the heck else would numismatists do!!!
If we turn the discussion into whose coins have the most face value QE wins hands down!
I haven't checked...but from what I'm reading good ole Abe probably does have the most coins minted. How many of those are zincolns and what is their attrition rate?
How many of those are zincolns
the post i made earlier i think it was 33%, maybe 37 as i never found the 2019/2020 numbers and i'm sure they aren't low.
interesting point about value, exchange rates and inflation adjusted.
honestly, with some of the key date unc lincs, i've venture a strong guess linc is also FAR above qeii.
i do confess to knowing virtually nothing about qeii's high-value coins. so there is a chance i could stand corrected. i guess next up is perusing the price guide, simply for this exercise and fun only.
While QE II became queen in 1952, I think the coinage with her portrait on it actually started in 1953.
Did you miss I said face value?? How many pennies(LOL cents) will a gold sovereign exchange at?
This one is $1,000,000 CAD face...
i know there is a lot of doubt out there in the world and to some extent rightly so but did someone really feel it necessary to scrape the rim of that monster to see if it is plated? ><
lest they are bag marks!!
One thing I have learned from this thread is that it is difficult to find mintage numbers for a lot of other countries.
My money is on Abe due to extremely high mintages.
ttt
I'll go with Abe. If we put the population of the Commonwealth countries at, say, 140m and compare that # to the rough (eyeball) number of Lincoln's produced in just the last 15 years of about 100b, that's 714 Lincoln's for each person in the Commonwealth. The Royal mint estimates 29.6b coins extant in the UK. UK pop about 67.3m, one gets about 440 coins per person. No contest.
Where are they all??
Sock drawers.
An interesting and timely thread bump.
I would also note the possible two interpretations of the OP's question. Everybody's talking about mintages, but as we all know, coins don't all last forever. Many are destroyed and melted down. So, the OP's question has two possible interpretations:
That first question is all about the raw mintages. The second one incorporates attrition rates. Because it seems clear to me that the vast majority of those coins with Lincoln's portrait struck since 1909 no longer exist - they've been withdrawn and melted down, privately melted, or (for Zincolns) have simply dissolved away in the rain.
I would postulate that the answer to the first question is indeed Abraham Lincoln. But I suspect the answer to the second question might be Queen Elizabeth II, because of the generally lower attrition rate. The other complicating factor affecting survivial is that all of the countries where QE2 has issued coinage, have had in place aggressive programs to withdraw old and obsolete coins for destruction - Canada has its Alloy Recovery Program, Australia went decimal in 1966 and withdrew 1 and 2 cent pieces in 1990, and Britain went decimal in 1970 and reformed most of the denominations in 1992. Lincolns have never been aggressively and officially destroyed. The ability of QE2 to win this second question depends largely on the thoroughness of the withdrawal processes.
The big unknown is, of course, how many "lost Lincolns" are actually surviving in caches and hoards to be found later, and how many are corroding away and degrading to the point of being effectively destroyed.
Of course, the mintage stats are going to continue favouring Abe, now that Her Majesty has passed away and they'll stop making coins with her picture on them, while Abe's stats will continue to rise for as long as circulating pennies continue to exist, probably at least a few more decades.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded one DPOTD.
QE II without a doubt
USN & USAF retired 1971-1993
Successful Transactions with more than 100 Members
The late Queen 🤔 didn’t realize how much I like her opposed to the alternative coming’ up 😬
Many are in landfills.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I'm sure there are several hundred in my house. Nobody pays attention to things with no intrinsic value. When I get Zincolns in change, I usually just throw them in the trash. They're a waste of my time, and everyone else's. If you make a decent living, spending one second of your time to look at the coin is a loosing proposition. When an entire box of them doesn't pay for a sit-down dinner we've entered the realm of ridiculousness. Sad.
Or in parking lots.
Do double struck obverses of the Queen count as 2 images (coins?)