Just when did Indian cents and "V" nickels disappear from circulation?

291fifth

Growing up in the Chicago area in the 1950's I don't ever recall seeing them in circulation. In addition, I once aquired a tin full of cents from my great aunt that had been used for card playing. The cents, about 1400 in total, were apparently pulled from circulation in about 1948. The tin didn't contain any Indian cents but it did contain an AG 1914-D as well as some semi-keys.

Just when did Indians & "V"'s disappear from circulation?

ziggy29

Anecdotally I've heard oldtimers say that they started disappearing from widespread circulation in the '20s and started becoming hard to find in the '30s. I'm sure a few were still circulating a bit later than that, particularly the 20th century issues.

Though it does depend on where you are. My dad was stationed in Puerto Rico from 1961-63, and that's where he began collecting because the circulating coins were a real treasure trove there. There were plenty of IHCs, Buffs, Mercs and Walkers still circulating then, with a few V-nickels, Barber coins and SLQs thrown in as well. Lincolns of all dates were still circulating as well -- there was plenty of stuff in the teens and twenties still floating around.

He picked off some better dates, too. He plucked all mints for the 1921 Walkers and 1921 Mercs there.

BillJones

My guess is they were probably gone from circulation by the late 1930s. The Great Depression brough a lot of coins out of the woodwork because people could not afford to same them. The coins, which already had some wear on them, got a lot more.

When I was kid, people did bring Indian cents to me in the early '60s that they claimed they got from circulation. I was never so lucky. When I was in the 5th grade in 1960, a girl in my class brought in a Barber half dollar for lunch money. It was in Good condition, and I ended up with it for face value. That was not really a rip-off because even today you will see low grade Barber coins in junk silver bags.

SmallSizedGuy

I think it depended on what part of the country you grew up. My mom was from Milwaukee and she said there were no Indian Head cents in circulation in the 40s and 50s, but my dad was from Tennessee and said he saw them all the time. In Atlanta in 1978, I once received a roll of cents where the most current cents were 1954 in BU condition. This roll had 10 Indian cents in the roll.

kranky

I got a handful of IHCs while having a paper route in the 1960's. Maybe 1 out of every 1000 cents, if I had to estimate.

elwood

I could still find an Indian, in rolls, in the late 60"s early 70's.
Can't remember ever finding a V Nickel??

cladking

There was an occasional indian circulating in the late '50's but these were very few and
far between and every one I saw was a cull, a reject that collectors didn't want. There is
a difference between a coin being in circulation and a coin type circulating. Today one can
find silver or wheat cents in change (even an indian as evidenced by a recent thread), none
of these coins is circulating. By definition circulation is the random movement of coins and
wheat cents have been removed and returned to circulation many times. Today there is a
sort of steady state where collectors removed these at about the same rate other horders
and collectors are returning them to circulation. This same argument could probably be used
for the cull indians "circulating" in the mid to late '50's; since these were culls they probably
did attract some collector interest so may not have been truly circulating. I remember seeing
only one V nickel (a cull).

DBSTrader2

One of my best finds as a kid back in the 70's was a decent-condition 1876 IHC in a bank roll of pennies. My friend's mom worked as a teller, and brought me a few rolls on my request - - boy, was my friend upset!!

Later, when I worked retail management for Woolworths & CVS, I'd routinely find wheaties, some silver (incl 40% halves), and silver certificates in the change drawers. But that was the '70's/'80's.

I don't really handle change routinely anymore, save getting some JFK rolls from the bank a few years ago to go thru, but I VERY RARELY even turn up any wheaties anymore. Latest find was a silver quarter a kid used to buy candy at my wife's school candy sale that I was lucky enough to be there to snag.

It's a shame. Kids today have nothing to really drive them to start collecting at the "cheap" end of the scale, with the exception of the state quarters. But those and most of our recent coinage changes have been "low relief", low-quality, "junk", in my opinion. I'm glad I started out as a kid with my grandparents taking me down to "smelters row" to check thru coffee cans of "junk" silver to add to my Whitman folders at 2.5 times face, or I'd never have gotten as far as I have. I only regret I was born too late to get silver before it was removed from our coins - - just 5 years earlier would have been nice!!

- - Dave

earlwbollinger

I think I vaguely remember getting V nickles and Indian Head cents in my change as a little kid once in a while in Arizona, that was back in the late 50's early 60's.
My mother used to give me a silver dollar every payday, I remember having 25-30 of them after a while.

CaptHenway

I started collecting in Detroit about 1960. I found a few Indian Head cents in rolls, but never a V-nickel.
Tom D.

jimtre

Silver Dollars were the norm when I grew up in Montana. They were still there when I went into the Army in 1962. But gone when I got out in 1965.

Heck, when I was a kid Mom used to send us down to the store in the summertime to get one dollar bills. She used these for birthday presents etc. Much easier to mail tha a silver dollar.

About 3 years ago while working the fireworks stand I broke open a roll of pennies for change and noticed this funny cent. Upon looking it was an IHC in good.

Jim

cladking

<< <i>

It's a shame. Kids today have nothing to really drive them to start collecting at the "cheap" end of the scale, with the exception of the state quarters. But those and most of our recent coinage changes have been "low relief", low-quality, "junk", in my opinion. I'm glad I started out as a kid with my grandparents taking me down to "smelters row" to check thru coffee cans of "junk" silver to add to my Whitman folders at 2.5 times face, or I'd never have gotten as far as I have. I only regret I was born too late to get silver before it was removed from our coins - - just 5 years earlier would have been nice!!

- - Dave >>




People started pulling the best coins out of circulation in the 1930's. According to The Numismatist
several years ago more than 95% of the '09-S VDB cents had already been removed from circulation
by 1945. By the mid-'50's there was little left except rejects and a few semi-keys in low grade.

Today most of the coinage has never even been looked at by a knowledgeable collector. Rare coins
circulate right alongside common stuff. This is one of the best times ever to be a new collector or to
collect from change.

Deadhorse

In the early sixties, my Dad would go to the bank that handled our little town's parking meter change and he would buy a bag of pennies for $50.00

We would spend the weekend going through them and rolling them up. That was the deal, you had to roll them to turn them back in.

I'd estimate we would find about one roll of Indian cents per bag, or roughly 1%. We even found several badly worn flying eagle cents.

We also found 2 '09-S VDBs and 3 '14-Ds along with many other key dates including a '22 no D over about a two year period. This was brought to an abrupt halt by the bank finally buying counting/rolling machines. We filled multiple whitman folders in those days. I had rolls of '09-S and '09-VDB pennies along with most all of the early dates, rolls of each of them.

Location was probably in our favor as we were in a small community directly in the midwest, farmers came into town from as far as 50-60 miles away as we were the only small city for over a hundred miles in any direction. It wasn't uncommon to see people spending Peace dollars when I was a little kid and I had quite a stack of them myself. I was still finding Walkers in change until I went off to college in the early 70s. When I returned 4 years later, there was nothing but recent clad coinage.

coinnut86

Great thread..

My dad collected up until his 30's (he'll be 60 in May) and he has a couple v nickels that he got through circulation.. so they were still out there in the 50's and 60's

Man

I'd guess every time a coin is discontinued it takes 30 years before it leaves circulation. I saw the same thing in the 70's with wheat cents.

All that said I did find a 1907 IHC in my change on 02-11-06 here's the post link.

BlindedByEgo

Growing up in Los Angeles in the 60's and 70's, I remember finding coins of interest quite often. My buddy next door found a 10-S Lincoln in change back in '72 or so. Low grade IHC's and flat V nickels were quite common.

Talking with my father in law Sunday night, he said that his job in Montana back in '63/'64 was carrying bags of Silver Dollars from the bank to the antique/ collectable/ general merchandise store he worked at. He remebers that they were darn heavy, one in each hand walking the 3 blocks from the bank to the store in Great Falls. They turned around and shipped 'em back East.

Sadly, none of them ended up in his possession.

ziggy29

<< <i>I'd guess every time a coin is discontinued it takes 30 years before it leaves circulation. I saw the same thing in the 70's with wheat cents. >>

This thing is, a century ago, 30 years was often enough to wear a coin down to Good condition. These days, change tends to stay in jars so often that 30 years of "circulation" is likely to end up in a VF coin.

And I also think that today, if a coin design were discontinued, it would start being hoarded almost overnight. By 1970 it was already unusual to find wheat cents only 12 years old. Wheaties mostly left circulation very quickly, and I think it would happen even more quickly today.