Let's Play A Prediction Game. With The End Of Cent Production Early Next Year,.........
OAKSTAR
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.........how long do you think before they are virtually gone from circulation? Will they be hoarded? Will they just zinc rot and blow away?
Make a prediction here. I hate going first! 🤣 😂
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
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7 years
i expect hoarding for the copper, but the masses will start caring about them and metal mining the couch too avoid rounding
I get asked this all the time, many are hoarding 2025, but I think 2026 will be the last, now will there be production of 26's for commerce early part of year, or will they save planchets just to include in proof and mint sets only for 26 or both?
I'm so old, I remember 1965. This is different. Cent coins have practically no intrinsic value, and that won't change for the foreseeable future. A few hundred million may be put away as keepsakes, but that'll be balanced by all the ones now sitting in drawers which will be brought to banks.
So I don't believe that they will become scarce from hoarding.
But, being as how they make billions of them each year, largely to replace ones that are lost, destroyed or put in drawers, I suspect that, within a very few years, cent coins will largely disappear.
I think they will disappear quickly. Businesses will stop ordering them to make change, since there won't be enough available, so rounding to 5 cents for cash transactions will become nearly universal, whether you like that or not. Not many people will care because few want the cents to begin with. And once you stop getting them in change, where are you going to get cents?
Does the mint plan to make a special anniversary cent for 2026?
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I'm with @element159 on the rounding up and how that will happen. I also believe that will happen fast, and as it does, cents will disappear quickly, especially in metro areas and cities. Probably as quick as the end of 2026.
Even in small rural towns and sleepy bedroom communities, where they may linger the longest, seeing them after 2030 will be a complete rarity.
my 2c ... which by then, won't even make sense any more
“We are only their care-takers,” he posed, “if we take good care of them, then centuries from now they may still be here … ”
Todd - BHNC #242
Probably similar to what happened in Canada. Demand will disappear before supply since businesses will start rounding once minting stops.
People will still have them and spend them for 5-6 years after minting stops.
I highly doubt significant hoarding will take place. Why?
I think the zinc will go poof quick and coppers will go in 10 yrs. We shall see
Current events, not politics.
Pennies will disappear quickly. Even if people didn't quit using them immediately they will not have many opportunities as prices are rounded. I'm expecting limited hording when people realize that how few nice examples still exist. Of course there are no old Gems in circulation but people don't know that. Within several weeks of their discontinuance there will be a significant yet small inflow of pennies to the banks as stores slow orders and returns from customers intensifies. This will not last long but the result will be a sea of pennies coming into the FED which will begin melting coins within months.
Funny thing, I was wakened this morning by a dream that my creek was flooding; from downstream!
The FED will issue a statement that pennies will remain legal tender forever but inflation might actually increase inflows by focusing attention on just how worthless the penny really is and people won't want to see their jars of pennies become as worthless.
I still believe that many collectors will want to update their collections to include the memorials and be astounded at the difficulty of finding nice specimens of these lowly coins made not for commerce but government whim and inertia and to virtually no standard by a mint charged not with making one cent coins but with making billions and billions of toxic slugs. Collectors have utterly ignored these coins so have no idea of the difficulty of finding choice specimens.
Same as now. Almost entirely a one-way trip from the US Mint to the public's "change jar". It has no value.
As for hoarding, cents have been hoarded in large numbers for decades.
I agree. I don’t think they circulate now, in the traditional sense of the word “circulate”.
Probably. There will probably be a special cent set too.
I think the changeover and disappearance of cents will be quicker than most have anticipated IF retailers can make whatever changes they must make quickly (reprogramming or whatever). Cash transactions for purchases will reduce significantly overall as well, accelerating the process.
What is the LEGAL status? This is still just an executive order right? Bills were introduced but haven't gone anywhere in Congress...
Without legislation setting rules for rounding, there will be an endless parade of disputes and lawsuits... if stores can't get cents for the small # of cash transactions, they'll have to resort to something. Penny candy makes a comeback!
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Canada stopped minting them in early 2012 and stopped distributing them at the beginning of 2013.
Pennies are still legal tender but businesses are not required to accept them and can round to the nearest nickel as they see fit.
My guess is that within a couple of years U.S. businesses will not be required to accept them either, except for maybe banks.
How long before they're virtually gone from actual circulation? I'm guessing 20 years.
Coins are Neato!
"If it's a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone...somewhere...is making a penny." - Steven Wright
I see an additional fuel to inflation.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
I’m uncertain whether legislation is needed to address rounding. I would think that a business today could round the total as long as it is disclosed. Wouldn’t be surprised to see some business always round down and ballyhoo same.
BTW I believe non-cash transactions are not rounded in Canada nor should they be here. Hence my comment that cash transactions will decline.
The day after they deliver the last Lincoln cent—
Cool light will reveal fog, and pink and blue will streak the horizon. As zephyrs remove the mist the growing light will expose the landscape. Air will warm slowly while shadows shorten and disappear and grow longer again. Water in the soil will evaporate and burden the air, collapsing into a light rain. Moisture will cool the air, inviting breezes as the sky darkens. A shimmering glow will rise above the horizon, becoming a cold orb that will arc over the plain..
They're already gone from circulation and have been for many years. Only 15% of the population even uses cash and those who do throw away their brand new 2025 pennies (even if they are remarkable Gems) or stash them in a change jar until the coins are so dirty some banks won't take them. They're worth less than the time it takes to count them. They're dirty and leave a trail of toxic rust on everything, like your hands. This isn't about politics it's about a coin that isn't even a coin that has been foisted on the American people for decades. It's about the very definition of the word "coin" and the implications apply to coin collectors.
Most of these coins are simply going to be thrown in the trash where they'll poison the landfills too. Another 20 years of inflation is not going to make a trip to the bank to redeem a handful more cost effective. By the time the last American even knows they aren't being used any longer in about 20 years (dependent on whether AI tells them or not) pennies may have no value even by the bucket full.
The mint already estimates a nearly 90% attrition rate on these. Incredibly it's the coins from the 1980's with the highest attrition rates as half the 1909-S VDB's are still around because they are valued and don't evaporate on rainy days. Cessation of production will simply increase the attrition. Coins returned to banks will be melted but fewer than 10% are likely to be returned because (did I mention) pennies are less than worthless. You might read stories about a flood of coins but this flood will constitute about 10% of what's in circulation. The other 90% will likely trickle into banks and flow into landfills and be mostly gone in ten years. But make no mistake. There will be billions of survivors, perhaps tens of billions even in 100 years. They will literally come out of the wood work for the foreseeable future. But what won't be available are the same coins that are barely available today like nice pristine 1968 cents. These aren't available because collectors didn't bother to save them and the few that were saved are mostly all tarnished today.
You could say pennies quit being one cent coins in 1975 when their practical value dipped under one cent and they haven't circulated in two decades. 90% are already destroyed and the rest are racing to meet the same fate.
There is one small difference in the numbers though lol...
Straight from Google Gemini (AI)
Q: When pennies stopped being minted and then stopped being used in Canada approximately how many Canadian pennies were in circulation at the time
A: At the time the government announced the penny's withdrawal, it was estimated that there were approximately 6 billion Canadian pennies in circulation. Since then, the Royal Canadian Mint has been collecting and recycling pennies, and by 2014, about 4 billion had been redeemed. However, the exact number of pennies still in circulation today is not known due to many having been hoarded
Q: Approximately how many U.S. pennies are currently in circulation?
A: While an exact, real-time number is difficult to determine, current estimates suggest that there are approximately 114 billion to 240 billion pennies in circulation in the United States.
Coins are Neato!
"If it's a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone...somewhere...is making a penny." - Steven Wright
How quickly they disappear depends on how business reacts to the change. The local Meijer stores may have to stock some so the young kids in the store can ride Sandy for one cent.
My wife collects flattened cents from our travels and recognized that the businesses promoting those machines will be at a loss. While some of them carry their own blanks, there exists the question of whether such blanks will still be produced and available when the biggest customer for them (the Mint) isn't buying blanks anymore.
I think the extant circulation of the cent will depend on niche environments.
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This gets down to definitions and your AI comes preset with definitions while it's scouring the net and everything known defined as what is on the net. AI tells me that modern coins aren't collectible until itis trained just as for many years wiki said modern coins aren't collectible. It cites common wisdom based on best definitions where there is subjectivity and this subjectivity really does include virtually every abstraction and every meaning when parsed in a sentence. Its ability to work at all in such complexity is truly amazing.
Since these aren't even "coins" by any normal definition it might be better to consider the total number extent. Based on the attrition of cents from each decade I believe the best guess for the actual number to be in the vicinity of 100B. This does not include cents that are lost in such a way they can never be found before they are destroyed utterly. For instance there are many people reportedly who have filled walls of homes with pennies. Many of these coins will never be recovered before they are no longer collectible so not all are included in the estimate. Most of the coins missing from circulation simply don't exist any longer. They have been flattened in machines or runover by locomotives. They have been lost, flooded, or burnt in fires. When Niagara Falls was shut down several years back they got several truck loads of coins (mostly US pennies) from the bottom. 10,000,000 cars a year are recycled and average more than 20 coins each. People throw them in the trash so municipal incinerators recover them by the truckload while most go into landfill.
Even if the estimate is off the fact is that the cents don't circulate. Many coins are issued by banks each year but a lot of them make a one way trip from mint, to FED, to bank, to store, to their final resting place. Many one cent pieces are not recoverable, not in circulation. There are many millions of pennies in BU rolls that the owner doesn't even know has returned to dust. There are countless millions of US pennies in mixtures of foreign coins all over the world. There are millions of coins in coin collections and slabbed as Gem '09-S VDB's. There are many coins being churned by the waters of Niagara Falls right now and many of these will eventually wear away to nothing while having no chance of being saved.
Of course hording of cents has, is, and will occur. But most of these coins are what's in "circulation" today and if you actually look at what's circulating you'll see garbage. Up until about 2021 almost every penny issued by the mint was stained or tarnished. Surviving 2021 cents are still stained because it doesn't wear off leaving a pristine coin underneath. AI knows this but AI doesn't know that all those people claiming 1968 cents in MS-65 condition have never actually gone out and tried to find a pristine 1968 cent. They praise the virtues of old US coins (mostly what they have for sale) and then say moderns are uncollectible because they were made by the billion. You can poke through many many boxes of pennies and not even find a nice attractive unmolested 1968 cent in VF. No, it will never be a rare coin in VF because they are in the walls of houses, poundage in Europe, and old hordes. Very few are in collections though because AI says they are common even in MS-65. AI is wrong. Ask it how they built the pyramids. Ask it the nature of cognition. Ai is great where definitions lack a lot of flexibility and are at the heart of science where variables are known and quantifiable but it has no experience with concepts like "love" or "the meaning of life". It is a very powerful tool but can only operate within its limitations which is to provide a snapshot of your question relative the state of the art. This snapshot will necessarily depend on definitions and how it parses your query. Then your understanding of the answer will depend on your definitions and how you parse it.
Canadian moderns were collected a little more proportionately than US moderns. Ceasing production had little impact on increasing collecting. But this is the United State of America and historically our coins have been very very widely collected; everything but moderns that is.