Interesting question, I think people will hoard them for awhile. I wonder how long large cents were in circulation after the 1859 switch to the smaller size cent we know today?
@Coin Finder said:
Interesting question, I think people will hoard them for awhile. I wonder how long large cents were in circulation after the 1859 switch to the smaller size cent we know today?
These coins are simply toast and the irony is there will be a tiny fraction as many 1968 pennies in ten years than there are 1919-S. 30% of the '19-S mintage will survive but a fraction of 1% of the 1968. Nothing can stop it because most of the 1968's are already gone and the millions that still exist today have a date with a crucible.
So you're saying check out 68's?
Welll... yeah, but more check out all the memorials. Most are common even in Gem but there's a lot of dates that are far tougher than the wheats in nice attractive grades. Most were poorly made and only some were set aside in huge numbers. The '68 was an exception because it was saved in large numbers but most have turned bad. But the real scarcity comes in Gem because very very few were well made. A few nice coins went into the mint sets but almost all the mint sets are gone and almost all the surviving '68-P's in them are tarnished. It's a tough coin but no one seems to know it and it's not the toughest. A nice clean '84 with flat surfaces in Gem, is virtually unknown. People stash AG '19-S's and never notice some later coins are tough.
Although we like to call them pennys, the penny is an english coin. The cent is the american US version, 1/100th. That being said, cents are going to be in circulation and accepted as currency forever. It'a hard to believe that the cent will go the way of the half cent soon, but it will
The big question is whether they ever will be worth more than 1 cent at the bank. Nobody wants them except us collectors.
I remember seeing a homeless bum sitting on Telegraph ave in Berkeley, CA who begged me "Spare change?" I reached in my pocket and had about 6 cents in "pennies", I handed them to him, and he looked at them and then threw them at me as I walked away. I guess my cash was nothing but trash. back in the 90's
“When you don't know what you're talking about, it's hard to know when you're finished.” - Tommy Smothers
Do they still melt coins at the mint? I know theres a lot of copper in the nickel . Supposedly nickels cost the Treasury 8 cents to make. Why not melt down the old pennies (worth 3-4 cents in melt value for the zinc and copper). Or just make nickels out of steel like they did with pennies in 1943?
“When you don't know what you're talking about, it's hard to know when you're finished.” - Tommy Smothers
Seldomly use cash and when I do the transaction is in $1.00 denoms and no change. Personally no interest in receiving change and imagine outside of coin collectors most care less.
Limiting to quarters only. There is that need. Nickels are as useless as pennies. Dimes possibly but not much need. Half Dollars? When did merchants stop the half? 1970’s?
@blitzdude said:
There are 300 billion currently in circulation, they won't be gone anytime soon. RGDS!
Think of how many millions and millions of Indian head cents were made. An insane amount. And yet we don’t see those around anymore in circulation. Same thing with wheat cents
I’m guessing every American household is gonna have a 5 gallon bucket of pennies and it’ll be hard to come across them in the wild in about 10 years
"I'll split the atom! I am the fifth dimension! I am the eighth wonder of the world!" -Gef the talking mongoose.
@blitzdude said:
There are 300 billion currently in circulation, they won't be gone anytime soon. RGDS!
Think of how many millions and millions of Indian head cents were made. An insane amount. And yet we don’t see those around anymore in circulation. Same thing with wheat cents
I’m guessing every American household is gonna have a 5 gallon bucket of pennies and it’ll be hard to come across them in the wild in about 10 years
Just got a wheat today in the coinstar reject bin. Not sure I follow the logic, most Americans don't even use cash anymore, why would every household end up with a 5-gallon bucket of them? RGDS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
@blitzdude said:
There are 300 billion currently in circulation, they won't be gone anytime soon. RGDS!
Think of how many millions and millions of Indian head cents were made. An insane amount. And yet we don’t see those around anymore in circulation. Same thing with wheat cents
I’m guessing every American household is gonna have a 5 gallon bucket of pennies and it’ll be hard to come across them in the wild in about 10 years
So, because collectors pulled 50 million Indian cents out of circulation over the course of 50 years, you think collectors will pull 100 billion Lincolns or of circulation over 10 years?
50 million Indians is 25 coins for each of 2 million collectors. 100 billion Lincolns is 300 FOR EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
So I stopped in at the bank this morning to do some business and then asked for a role of pennies. No luck, they said they can't give them out anymore and have been ordered to send them all back to the distributor. I guess kids aren't going to be able to easily fill his Whitman albums anymore. Do you think the value of all these formerly easy to find coins will increase much in value?
@MaineJim said:
So I stopped in at the bank this morning to do some business and then asked for a role of pennies. No luck, they said they can't give them out anymore and have been ordered to send them all back to the distributor. I guess kids aren't going to be able to easily fill his Whitman albums anymore. Do you think the value of all these formerly easy to find coins will increase much in value?
No. The majority of circulating cents are still in people's jars, cans, vehicle cupholders, and junk drawers. There are billions and billions of them.
If the banks won't give them out then will the common modern cents become not so common? I'm thinking of all the Memorial and Shield pennies (cents)? I know we are only talking about coins worth a few pennies right now but maybe circulation grade ones will soon become worth a buck or two.
@MaineJim said:
If the banks won't give them out then will the common modern cents become not so common? I'm thinking of all the Memorial and Shield pennies (cents)? I know we are only talking about coins worth a few pennies right now but maybe circulation grade ones will soon become worth a buck or two.
Jim
Not a chance. There are billions of circulation grade coins.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
@MaineJim said:
If the banks won't give them out then will the common modern cents become not so common? I'm thinking of all the Memorial and Shield pennies (cents)? I know we are only talking about coins worth a few pennies right now but maybe circulation grade ones will soon become worth a buck or two.
Jim
No. Not while you can get BU rolls for 5c each if you can find them.
I’ll answer your question with a question. Will copper spike in value this year as is widely predicted and if so, by how much? Despite the legal prohibition against melting base coinage for metal value, the prohibition is pretty much not enforced.
@cladking said:
No. Not while you can get BU rolls for 5c each if you can find them.
Are there any dates that are typically harder to get or cost more than the couple of bucks a roll in BU you describe?
Jim
Oh yeah. Even though few collect coins made after 1965 some of these penny rolls are very highly elusive in nice chBU. Some dates almost all the coins went bad like the '68 and some were made very poorly like the '84 or '79-D. A few like the '86-D were very lightly saved so are uncommon.
The difficulty of actually laying you hands on some of these coins is grossly understated by the price guides because there are lots of ugly coins out there and some dates are often corroded.
The real problem is finding nice pristine coins which is what collectors demand. Even BU rolls when you finally find a good one can have as few as "25" or "30" coins that can be shipped as "chBU" but most will have "45" or so.
I think the OP is asking how long will we see pennies or cents in active circulation. Obviously, they'll be around forever since there are so many of them but they will eventually stop circulating in commerce.
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
@PerryHall said:
I think the OP is asking how long will we see pennies or cents in active circulation. Obviously, they'll be around forever since there are so many of them but they will eventually stop circulating in commerce.
Yes, now collectors will have to purchase cents instead of pulling them easily from circulation, will it push their value up slightly.
Once retailers round cash transactions, we won’t see them in circulation, but a jillion of them will be out there unless it becomes a thing to turn them in for recycling. Could happen fairly quickly depending on these factors.
@scotty1419 said:
How will these disappear from circulation - the banks will just decide to hold them back in storage?
There are SO MANY we could easily go for 1-2 decades without probably any issue I'd imagine....
Maybe retailers just collectively leverage the 'end of the cent' as another tool to round and get more money?
The banks won't have them at all. The Fed may have them in storage. It costs more than a cent for a bank to get a cent. They are not going to order them anymore.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
... odd thing is I’m 45 miles from Philly and hardly ever see fresh Denver coins. I had to get my daughter to bring me some rolls when she visited from Hawaii to find the ones I couldn’t find here.
>
Heh, In the PNW it seems to take about 8-10 years to get any P cents in change.
I had to look at ebay out of curiosity. I did a search on completed sales of sealed boxes of Lincoln cents. First thing I see is a sealed box of 2025 cents sold for $500. Ha? Wow, I also noted that the completed sales of sealed boxes average between $75 and $100 and there are a lot of those sales. I guess I missed the boat on that one!
Where have all the pennies gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the pennies gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the pennies gone?
Numismatists have picked them every one.
Oh, When will you ever learn?
Oh, When will you ever learn?
Great post, expecially regarding how the Aussies and Canadians succeessfully did it through "swedish rounding".
"i.e. transaction totals adding up to figures ending in 1, 2, 6 or 7 are rounded down, while 3, 4, 8 and 9 are rounded up."
While this seems complicated, the way to think of it is that there are two midpoints in every 10 cents - between 1 and 5 and between 6 and 10, so its really just rounding up or down to the nearest 5 cent increment so that transactions end in 5.
"No longer seen in change or given out in stores"? Probably weeks.
"No longer accepted by stores in change? That would take longer, and may depend on whatever form of further legislation is written to euthanize the cent. But if no such legislation is forthcoming and as long as they remain legal tender and banks continue to accept them in deposits, stores will probably continue to accept them indefinitely - even if the cash register slot that used to be dedicated to them is now used for some other coin. They will become less and less frequent, even in stores and localities where cash transactions remain commonplace, but probably won;t disappear completely.
No longer findable in bulk at all, under any circumstances? Even longer yet - though the American situation is rather unique in having their 1 cent coins made of something so chemically unstable that they basically dissolve in rainwater and spontaneously self-destruct in air; this tendency to corrode and crumble into dust will seriously impact survival rates going forwards, compared to similarly common coins made from more durable alloys. I strongly believe that archaeologists in 2000 years time will sincerely believe that America stopped making pennies in 1982, because there will be no surviving evidence to the contrary.
One could perhaps look to examples from other countries to guess what might happen to America pennies, but the processes that other countries use to withdraw obsolete coins are unlikely to be followed by America, simply because this hasn't happened in the past.
In Canada, cents effectively disappeared from public view within a couple of weeks after the formal withdrawal. But in Canada, banks are obligated to return obsolete coins to the Mint for reprocessing, rather than re-issue them, so any cents entering the Canadian banking system are permanently and deliberately destroyed.
In Australia the 1 and 2 cent coins were withdrawn in 1992 and disappeared virtually overnight. National legislation was implemented directing people to use "Swedish rounding" i.e. transaction totals adding up to figures ending in 1, 2, 6 or 7 are rounded down, while 3, 4, 8 and 9 are rounded up. The coins are likewise still legal tender. New Zealand did much the same process in 1990, with similar results, and those coins are no longer legal tender.
The Eurozone is complicated by the fact that there technically isn't just "one euro currency", but over a dozen; each member-state issues its own euro coins, and each member-state is free to decide if 1 and 2 cent coins will be issued for circulation; national laws tend to mandate (or at least strongly suggest) Swedish rounding in countries where 1 and 2 cent coins do not circulate, but there is no consistent eurozone-wide policy.
“When you don't know what you're talking about, it's hard to know when you're finished.” - Tommy Smothers
Comments
I believe they will remain around for decades.
Interesting question, I think people will hoard them for awhile. I wonder how long large cents were in circulation after the 1859 switch to the smaller size cent we know today?
*1857
Yes! 1857! Thanks
Welll... yeah, but more check out all the memorials. Most are common even in Gem but there's a lot of dates that are far tougher than the wheats in nice attractive grades. Most were poorly made and only some were set aside in huge numbers. The '68 was an exception because it was saved in large numbers but most have turned bad. But the real scarcity comes in Gem because very very few were well made. A few nice coins went into the mint sets but almost all the mint sets are gone and almost all the surviving '68-P's in them are tarnished. It's a tough coin but no one seems to know it and it's not the toughest. A nice clean '84 with flat surfaces in Gem, is virtually unknown. People stash AG '19-S's and never notice some later coins are tough.
Do not expect to see trick-or-treaters for decades after that; might as well toss some candy corn pieces in the sack.
Although we like to call them pennys, the penny is an english coin. The cent is the american US version, 1/100th. That being said, cents are going to be in circulation and accepted as currency forever. It'a hard to believe that the cent will go the way of the half cent soon, but it will
The big question is whether they ever will be worth more than 1 cent at the bank. Nobody wants them except us collectors.
I remember seeing a homeless bum sitting on Telegraph ave in Berkeley, CA who begged me "Spare change?" I reached in my pocket and had about 6 cents in "pennies", I handed them to him, and he looked at them and then threw them at me as I walked away. I guess my cash was nothing but trash. back in the 90's
Do they still melt coins at the mint? I know theres a lot of copper in the nickel . Supposedly nickels cost the Treasury 8 cents to make. Why not melt down the old pennies (worth 3-4 cents in melt value for the zinc and copper). Or just make nickels out of steel like they did with pennies in 1943?
Seldomly use cash and when I do the transaction is in $1.00 denoms and no change. Personally no interest in receiving change and imagine outside of coin collectors most care less.
Limiting to quarters only. There is that need. Nickels are as useless as pennies. Dimes possibly but not much need. Half Dollars? When did merchants stop the half? 1970’s?
Just posted a photo of a 1992 D penny. Interesting penny it is.
Apparently it was just 9 threads later.
@OAKSTAR rough neighborhood
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Think of how many millions and millions of Indian head cents were made. An insane amount. And yet we don’t see those around anymore in circulation. Same thing with wheat cents
I’m guessing every American household is gonna have a 5 gallon bucket of pennies and it’ll be hard to come across them in the wild in about 10 years
Just got a wheat today in the coinstar reject bin. Not sure I follow the logic, most Americans don't even use cash anymore, why would every household end up with a 5-gallon bucket of them? RGDS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
So, because collectors pulled 50 million Indian cents out of circulation over the course of 50 years, you think collectors will pull 100 billion Lincolns or of circulation over 10 years?
50 million Indians is 25 coins for each of 2 million collectors. 100 billion Lincolns is 300 FOR EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
So I stopped in at the bank this morning to do some business and then asked for a role of pennies. No luck, they said they can't give them out anymore and have been ordered to send them all back to the distributor. I guess kids aren't going to be able to easily fill his Whitman albums anymore. Do you think the value of all these formerly easy to find coins will increase much in value?
Jim
No. The majority of circulating cents are still in people's jars, cans, vehicle cupholders, and junk drawers. There are billions and billions of them.
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
Mr_Spud
British system
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
So I guess it’s “a nickel for your thoughts” now? 🤔🤪
If the banks won't give them out then will the common modern cents become not so common? I'm thinking of all the Memorial and Shield pennies (cents)? I know we are only talking about coins worth a few pennies right now but maybe circulation grade ones will soon become worth a buck or two.
Jim
Not a chance. There are billions of circulation grade coins.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
No. Not while you can get BU rolls for 5c each if you can find them.
Are there any dates that are typically harder to get or cost more than the couple of bucks a roll in BU you describe?
Jim
I’ll answer your question with a question. Will copper spike in value this year as is widely predicted and if so, by how much? Despite the legal prohibition against melting base coinage for metal value, the prohibition is pretty much not enforced.
Actually, this is very bad misinformation. You must only collect U.S coins.> @IkesT said:
Oh yeah. Even though few collect coins made after 1965 some of these penny rolls are very highly elusive in nice chBU. Some dates almost all the coins went bad like the '68 and some were made very poorly like the '84 or '79-D. A few like the '86-D were very lightly saved so are uncommon.
The difficulty of actually laying you hands on some of these coins is grossly understated by the price guides because there are lots of ugly coins out there and some dates are often corroded.
The real problem is finding nice pristine coins which is what collectors demand. Even BU rolls when you finally find a good one can have as few as "25" or "30" coins that can be shipped as "chBU" but most will have "45" or so.
I think the OP is asking how long will we see pennies or cents in active circulation. Obviously, they'll be around forever since there are so many of them but they will eventually stop circulating in commerce.
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
Yes, now collectors will have to purchase cents instead of pulling them easily from circulation, will it push their value up slightly.
Jim
Once retailers round cash transactions, we won’t see them in circulation, but a jillion of them will be out there unless it becomes a thing to turn them in for recycling. Could happen fairly quickly depending on these factors.
How will these disappear from circulation - the banks will just decide to hold them back in storage?
There are SO MANY we could easily go for 1-2 decades without probably any issue I'd imagine....
Maybe retailers just collectively leverage the 'end of the cent' as another tool to round and get more money?
Retailers have been rounding for years, but sure- let's worry about it some more.
The banks won't have them at all. The Fed may have them in storage. It costs more than a cent for a bank to get a cent. They are not going to order them anymore.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
>
Heh, In the PNW it seems to take about 8-10 years to get any P cents in change.
I had to look at ebay out of curiosity. I did a search on completed sales of sealed boxes of Lincoln cents. First thing I see is a sealed box of 2025 cents sold for $500. Ha? Wow, I also noted that the completed sales of sealed boxes average between $75 and $100 and there are a lot of those sales. I guess I missed the boat on that one!
Jim
With apologies to Pete Seeger:
Where have all the pennies gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the pennies gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the pennies gone?
Numismatists have picked them every one.
Oh, When will you ever learn?
Oh, When will you ever learn?
They will be in estates for decades.
I have 3 coffee cans full of them.....
The pennies in circulation are all culls or brand new coins (or both).
Great post, expecially regarding how the Aussies and Canadians succeessfully did it through "swedish rounding".
"i.e. transaction totals adding up to figures ending in 1, 2, 6 or 7 are rounded down, while 3, 4, 8 and 9 are rounded up."
While this seems complicated, the way to think of it is that there are two midpoints in every 10 cents - between 1 and 5 and between 6 and 10, so its really just rounding up or down to the nearest 5 cent increment so that transactions end in 5.