@MasonG said:
But can you still find 60 year old gems in your change to put into it?
No...
You might find a 62 year old Gem because millions of pre-1965 cents were set aside and they are still being released because of degradation and lack of value for anything except MS-65 and better. Many collectors cherry pick rolls of these older coins and dump the rest into circulation. By the time an individual has done this a few times he might release something that's Gem. There are tired longs holding bags of '66 cents as well. but as I've mentioned repeatedly very few of these were ever saved so very few can be released. It's been decades since I've seen a nice XF or AU '66 cent in circulation. No Gems.
People imagine if you make two billion of something it will be common forever so nobody bothered to save or collect them. The bottleneck has eaten them. They failed.
@MasonG said:
And the rest is just silly. My Lincoln collection started in the early 60's and as soon as 1966 rolled around, a 1966 cent was added to it. I guarantee my set is not the only one like that.
Do you still have it? What condition is it in? Can it be sold as a nice chBU?
Yes I do. It's a nice Ch BU. Which is something (my collection, including a BU 1966 penny) you said didn't exist.
cladking: "There are not old time collections containing BU 1966 pennies in any grade."
When you make up stuff like that, it makes it difficult to take your claims seriously.
I see multiple such sets yearly in estates. Local dealer offered my a pile of such folders but he wanted 2 cents per cent for them, so I passed. He actually talked a hoarder into buying them for 3 cents each for the "copper content".
Why do you and @MasonG keep beating your heads against the wall?
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
@cladking said:
Old time collections that formed before 1965 can't have a '66 Gem and old time collections formed after 1965 don't have a '66 cent.
You are moving the goalposts. Your previous comment, which I quoted and is even included in your post said nothing about gems: "There are not old time collections containing BU 1966 pennies in any grade."
"BU 1966 pennies in any grade"
And the rest is just silly. My Lincoln collection started in the early 60's and as soon as 1966 rolled around, a 1966 cent was added to it. I guarantee my set is not the only one like that.
What year did Whitman stop selling cent folders? Oh, wait, they still do???? I wonder why that is...🤔
When the '66 was current they sold millions of folders.
They sold very very few from 1974 to 1994. They are filled mostly with coins from circulation. Today the slot for 1966 pennies will normally be empty because this coin is very hard to find in circulation. When it is found it will be in poor condition, not chBU.
The coins aren't out there. The '66 is scarce in MS-64+ and I doubt it's widely available in MS-63. If it were easiliy found in MS-63 then why are people paying retail prices for chBU? If it were easily found then why are dealers restocking driving up the price of BU rolls?
Are you more interested in this date as an investment or for pride of ownership? Pride of ownership is by far #1 for me.
July 13, 2026 2:42PM "Without '66 pennies in old time collections there is no source for dealers to restock after they sell a coin."
July 13, 2026 2:50PM "If it were easily found then why are dealers restocking driving up the price of BU rolls?"
First, you say there is no source for dealers to restock, then you say that dealers restocking are driving prices up. Pick one. Can't be both.
@EastonCollection said:
I remember that 1969 Red Lincoln rolls were selling at $5 per roll. I had 40 original rolls that I got from a bank in the early 70s. I sold all the rolls. Are you saying I goofed by selling them?
The coins might have been junk. $5 was good money back then. Even if they were nice you could buy them back and still make a profit since time really is money.
I consider anything after 1840 to be modern. Where is my thinking wrong?
It's not wrong but there is a huge dividing line at 1965. Before that everyone collected moderns and saved new coins and after it nobody did. Maybe we should say 1840- 1965 are "pre-moderns".
After decades of work on reverse engineering the pyramids I consider anything after 2000 BC to be "modern". Everything is relative and all coins are "modern".
@MasonG said:
And the rest is just silly. My Lincoln collection started in the early 60's and as soon as 1966 rolled around, a 1966 cent was added to it. I guarantee my set is not the only one like that.
Do you still have it? What condition is it in? Can it be sold as a nice chBU?
Yes I do. It's a nice Ch BU. Which is something (my collection, including a BU 1966 penny) you said didn't exist.
cladking: "There are not old time collections containing BU 1966 pennies in any grade."
When you make up stuff like that, it makes it difficult to take your claims seriously.
I see multiple such sets yearly in estates. Local dealer offered my a pile of such folders but he wanted 2 cents per cent for them, so I passed. He actually talked a hoarder into buying them for 3 cents each for the "copper content".
Why do you and @MasonG keep beating your heads against the wall?
After the first dozen times, it's hard to stop. You forget your even doing it.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
In order to have a need to restock, wouldn't one need to have already been carrying a stock which has been depleted by one's sales? If nobody collects moderns, how would one ever run out of said stock and anyway, why would one have acquired that stock in the first place if it's expected there will be no buyers for it? And if, recognizing that nobody collects those coins, one somehow managed to sell one's last piece, wouldn't one be happy to see it gone? Why would one even consider restocking?
I’d be satisfied with a good picture of one. @IkesT can you ask your copilot to create an image of a 1966 Cent in the grade MS67+?
Maybe with some light orange/red toning.
@Coinscratch said:
I’d be satisfied with a good picture of one. @IkesT can you ask your copilot to create an image of a 1966 Cent in the grade MS67+?
Maybe with some light orange/red toning.
@Coinscratch said:
I’d be satisfied with a good picture of one. @IkesT can you ask your copilot to create an image of a 1966 Cent in the grade MS67+?
Maybe with some light orange/red toning.
I use Google, but here you go:
The slab looks fake, lol. I wonder if you asked it for an NGC slab The coin would have more hits.
In order to have a need to restock, wouldn't one need to have already been carrying a stock which has been depleted by one's sales? If nobody collects moderns, how would one ever run out of said stock and anyway, why would one have acquired that stock in the first place if it's expected there will be no buyers for it? And if, recognizing that nobody collects those coins, one somehow managed to sell one's last piece, wouldn't one be happy to see it gone? Why would one even consider restocking?
People are using search engines to find coins but you can't find rolls and bags with a search engine if there aren't any.
In order to have a need to restock, wouldn't one need to have already been carrying a stock which has been depleted by one's sales? If nobody collects moderns, how would one ever run out of said stock and anyway, why would one have acquired that stock in the first place if it's expected there will be no buyers for it? And if, recognizing that nobody collects those coins, one somehow managed to sell one's last piece, wouldn't one be happy to see it gone? Why would one even consider restocking?
People are using search engines to find coins but you can't find rolls and bags with a search engine if there aren't any.
If nobody's collecting moderns, why would a dealer be looking for them?
@RedRocket said:
Can anyone summarize the last 70 or so posts (since yesterday)?
This thread is hurting my brain (and I accept all the puns/jokes to follow that statement...)
1966 Cents do exist in vast quantities maybe but nobody can find one nor do they want one. People may try but they won’t succeed because they don’t exist maybe.
Study cladkings writings and you’ll find the same arguments with the same usual suspects. I find it entertaining (though I skip over any post consisting of more than two paragraphs) being an optimistic hunter as we probably all are.
In short cladking is bringing to light the hopeful aspirations of the modern frontier while using his own equations and based on years of study while Mason who apparently is the numbers guy find’s fault with these equations because they are only a small portion of the overall mintage and likes to point out the impossibilities of his equations.
Enter the Dragon; along comes WCC who also questions the equations but not from ratios, but rather a psychological opinion then stir in a little jmlanzaf to help keep things in perspective, add a little artwork by IkesT and voila!
@MasonG said:
If nobody's collecting moderns, why would a dealer be looking for them?
You missed it!
A $3 roll of 1966 cents now goes for $12 and they are selling for $3.50 each plus postage. They are turning $12 into $175. Prices are rising because it's gets harder to restock as the low hanging fruit disappears.
Moderns have been offered at retail for years but few coins sold. Now the supply is apparently not keeping up with the demand because, ...drum roll please... ...there is almost no supply and never was.
@Coinscratch said:
1966 Cents do exist in vast quantities maybe but nobody can find one nor do they want one. People may try but they won’t succeed because they don’t exist maybe.
Some moderns I know aren't out there and nobody even notices.
Pennies are a horse of another color and I paid less attention to them so have less experience.
What makes pennies different is that unlike the larger denominations some dates were saved in massive quantity and all were saved in significant quantity. With mintages in the tens of billions it gave me pause.
I came to the pennies largely through mint sets because even though all the pennies were well made there are some dates less well made. Nice 1971 (P) cents are mangled in the sets and rolls are no better. Over the years the mint sets have gone away through attrition and some of the pennies are almost invariably ruined by tarnish (like the '68 and '71). Some date BU rolls usually go bad like the '73-S even though the mint set coin is often pristine.
It's complicated mess but there are very scarce dates no one seems to know about and the '66 may or may not be one of the scarcest all the way down in lowly chBU. It is almost certainly tough in Gem. The only way we'll ever know is if collectors assemble sets because this gets the coins sorted and then when a wholesaler says "I can't source 1966 cents in chBU", we can be certain that Gems are very scarce because only 4% of mintage was Gem.
@WCC said:
I told him this before. He's counting and measuring it using his own grading standard, which isn't that of any leading TPG which is the market grading standard.
You missed the post in this thread where I said my grading of Mint State 1966 pennies aligns VERY closely with grading services due to the nature of this specific date.
Where I disagree with the services is on moderns that are very poorly made from heavily worn dies or that have ugly unattractive surfaces for other reasons. IN MY OPINION poorly made coins can not be Gems at all. I simply reserve the term "Gem" for nice attractive coins in grading MODERN coins.
This is simple really. Old coins have issues with wear and otherwise degraded surfaces so collectors seek coins that are clean and free of marks. Almost all old coins were attractive when they left the dies. Modern coins are a monument to sloppy work, inattention to detail, and Gresham's Law. I seek the exception and call them "Gems".
Modern Gems simply prove that there are good things about the Modern Consumer Age. They give me hope that the next product I buy won't fail on its first day.
We've been over this ad nauseum. What isn't "good enough" for you is good enough for practically everyone else. PCGS has graded over 550 1966 cents as MS-66 RD or better. That's not a low number, except to you. An MS-66 isn't "tough" to buy and the $72 eBay price someone posted earlier here isn't low either, again except to you.
@cladking said:
Pennies are a horse of another color and I paid less attention to them so have less experience.
I watched many usage patters for pennies as well as their distribution and I talked to people who saved coins or worked in the markets. I know there were bags and bags and bags of '66 cents saved but I also know it much fewer than most dates. I even know they were less likely to go bad than many. But attrition on them was huge in the '70's when people got tired of sitting on a non-performing asset. Even though there were dozens and dozens of bags of '64 pennies being released monthly you'd still see a '66 in BU once in a while.
Here's another way to picture the reality. The number of SMS coins is easily estimated because about two million were made and attrition has only whittled them down to ~600,000. Yet when you see collections and accumulations the SMS's dwarf the number of circulation strikes seen. The SMS are usually MS-65/6 and circulation strikes are 62/3. With only half being chBU and 4% of those should be Gem. This would mean 4% of 300,000 are Gem if all '66 pennies are in evidence; (12,000) coins.
There is no good reason to believe they aren't in evidence because people don't collect moderns. People are imaging two billion coins in hiding waiting for a fool to pay good money for them but the coins are gone.
@WCC said:
I told him this before. He's counting and measuring it using his own grading standard, which isn't that of any leading TPG which is the market grading standard.
You missed the post in this thread where I said my grading of Mint State 1966 pennies aligns VERY closely with grading services due to the nature of this specific date.
Where I disagree with the services is on moderns that are very poorly made from heavily worn dies or that have ugly unattractive surfaces for other reasons. IN MY OPINION poorly made coins can not be Gems at all. I simply reserve the term "Gem" for nice attractive coins in grading MODERN coins.
This is simple really. Old coins have issues with wear and otherwise degraded surfaces so collectors seek coins that are clean and free of marks. Almost all old coins were attractive when they left the dies. Modern coins are a monument to sloppy work, inattention to detail, and Gresham's Law. I seek the exception and call them "Gems".
Modern Gems simply prove that there are good things about the Modern Consumer Age. They give me hope that the next product I buy won't fail on its first day.
We've been over this ad nauseum. What isn't "good enough" for you is good enough for practically everyone else. PCGS has graded over 550 1966 cents as MS-66 RD or better. That's not a low number, except to you. An MS-66 isn't "tough" to buy and the $72 eBay price someone posted earlier here isn't low either, again except to you.
It's a non-issue.
With only 48 going MS67 and 16 making 67+ and that is likely skewed.
Certainly there are more than 64 Lincoln cent collectors who prefer the best and true gems. 65/66 does absolutely nothing for me.
@cladking said:
It's not impossible there are two million Gems but I'm the only person I know who put a lot of effort into this date. I rejected many rolls and entire bags. I saved "2000" specimens and recovered only "25" Gems. I know there are people who toss around bags but there has been a market for these coins. Before 1979 I never heard of anyone looking for modern Gems. I was scouring the country and people were looking at me funny because nobody ever heard of looking for Gems. It's not something that's easy to do.
This is where you go wrong, assuming your experience is representative when it isn't. You know that the US Mint sold in the vicinity of 2MM to 4MM mint sets each year from 1968 to 1990, yet you've claimed this coinage was "not collected" or "hardly collected" because you don't see as many of these coins in the quality you insist you should at the prices you insist it should be worth. Or, everyone you asked didn't either, as if their experience is anymore representative than yours. You've also inferred and are doing it now again, that this coinage "wasn't collected" or "hardly collected" out of circulation for the same reason.
Look at the TPG data for other coins you don't know anything about. Look at websites and auctions for coins you don't collect. Look at dealer websites for this coainge.
Yes, if anyone can buy a 1796-1797 half dollar any day of the week in some qualify, these random coins you decide to start a thread on aren't as scarce as you claim and imply.
No one consults you when they add a coin to or a sell a coin from their collection.
Everything is relative. There are no absolutes in reality except that there are rules by which reality unfolds. We imagine absolutes like that any coin can be classified as "modern" if it's less than 62 years old.
In 1957 when I started collecting the current coinage was being chased by millions of collectors and the 1950-D nickel was virtually "ancient" to us. It was also a very valuable coin and worth over $300 in today's money.
There were approximately 100 times as many '50-D's as there are nice gemmy '66 one cent coins. The population has nearly doubled.
With only 48 going MS67 and 16 making 67+ and that is likely skewed.
Certainly there are more than 64 Lincoln cent collectors who prefer the best and true gems. 65/66 does absolutely nothing for me.
I presume there are some duplicates in this data, and others not in holders qualifying for the grade too. Still, these numbers aren't low for a condition census grade, nowhere near it.
As for how many want it, the real question is how many want to pay for "full freight", which is a not even noticeable fraction of those who collect it.
@cladking said:
There were approximately 100 times as many '50-D's as there are nice gemmy '66 one cent coins. The population has nearly doubled.
Almost half of the '50-D's are gone now so there are only 50 times as many as gemmy '66's.
You're quoting and responding to yourself now? Be careful of those voices in your head.
Exactly where did half of the 1950D nickels go to? Most were saved by collectors. Did they find a way to beat the old adage that "you can't take it with you"?
@WCC said:
Yes, I know it's increased a lot proportionately from FV, as that happens with practically every coin eventually in the quality you're writing about. No, an arbitrary catalog price doesn't ever mean it was worth the listed price, or anywhere near it.
I'm talking about "uncirculated" world moderns having increased many many fold. Grading of Gems is more a US (and now Chinese) phenomenon. Other countries tend to have better and more consistent quality than our old clad coins but as a rule of thumb the higher prices apply only to what I call "chBU". The typical 1966 penny left the mint in chBU but the typical 1966 quarter was an ugly misshapen lump when it was made.
Isn't it a mystery how you claim you can't find these coins because it's so scarce, yet numerous collectors just on this forum own relatively large numbers in series I can infer you've never seen even once in your entire life either?
There have been collectors who said they owned large numbers of coins I've cited but then when they check their accumulation they find they're missing them. The coins have never been sorted, saved, and collected. They havent been graded, cataloged or even looked at.
If coin collectors don't have them then who does.
You're still going by your experience. Your experience isn't what you imply. Your reply makes it evident you don't understand how to estimate survivorship and quality distribution.
I just told you I personally own 100 pillars (1752-1772) in a TPG holder excluding Mexico with only two 8R which are the most common. Are you trying to tell me these "moderns" are scarcer as you did before with 60's and 70's Soviet coinage because you couldn't find it?
There isn't anyone who actually understands the coin market who believes what you're claiming and implying. With this Soviet coinage, you were telling me that a 15-25 year old coin from the USSR (a major country) is "rare" due to abnormally high attrition, so high apparently it was higher than an entire series two centuries older with effectively no collecting and almost no communication with the rest of the world. Who believes this other than you?
@cladking said:
Pennies are a horse of another color and I paid less attention to them so have less experience.
I watched many usage patters for pennies as well as their distribution and I talked to people who saved coins or worked in the markets. I know there were bags and bags and bags of '66 cents saved but I also know it much fewer than most dates. I even know they were less likely to go bad than many. But attrition on them was huge in the '70's when people got tired of sitting on a non-performing asset. Even though there were dozens and dozens of bags of '64 pennies being released monthly you'd still see a '66 in BU once in a while.
Here's another way to picture the reality. The number of SMS coins is easily estimated because about two million were made and attrition has only whittled them down to ~600,000. Yet when you see collections and accumulations the SMS's dwarf the number of circulation strikes seen. The SMS are usually MS-65/6 and circulation strikes are 62/3. With only half being chBU and 4% of those should be Gem. This would mean 4% of 300,000 are Gem if all '66 pennies are in evidence; (12,000) coins.
There is no good reason to believe they aren't in evidence because people don't collect moderns. People are imaging two billion coins in hiding waiting for a fool to pay good money for them but the coins are gone.
You're responding to and arguing with yourself
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
@JBK said:
Exactly where did half of the 1950D nickels go to? Most were saved by collectors. Did they find a way to beat the old adage that "you can't take it with you"?
Attrition never sleeps. A lot of them were bulldozed away after the house they were in flooded or burned down. Some were lost in Katrina along with countless million of Mardi Gras doubloons. They get lost in the mail, fall through cracks and stashed by people who don't dig them up prior to checking out. They are destroyed through intent, neglect and misadventure. They are inadvertantly put into circulation and recycled in old cars.
Nearly 1% a year will be destroyed and the less valuable the coin the higher the number.
This is the first time Copilot did the math for me!
_This is exactly right.
And it’s not just 1% per year.
It’s 1% per year compounded over 74 years.
Let’s do the math procedurally:
If
𝑁
0
is the number saved in 1950, and attrition is 1% per year:
𝑁
(
𝑡
)
𝑁
0
⋅
(
0.99
)
𝑡
For 74 years:
𝑁
(
74
)
𝑁
0
⋅
(
0.99
)
74
≈
𝑁
0
⋅
0.48
That means:
Half of all saved coins are gone even under the lowest plausible attrition rate._
@MasonG said:
If nobody's collecting moderns, why would a dealer be looking for them?
You missed it!
I didn't miss anything. You said (and have been saying) that nobody collects moderns. Now, you're saying that prices are up due to demand for coins nobody collects.
You need to learn how to frame a logical statement.
@MasonG said:
If nobody's collecting moderns, why would a dealer be looking for them?
You missed it!
I didn't miss anything. You said (and have been saying) that nobody collects moderns. Now, you're saying that prices are up due to demand for coins nobody collects.
You need to learn how to frame a logical statement.
Heaven forfend!
I'm trying to learn to communicate because I don't believe in logic or more accurately I don't believe logic can be expressed in symbolic language as we use.
The collectors of moderns, the demand, is largely coming from outside the hobby. Nobody inside the hobby will pay $3.50 for an MS-63 1966 penny but Aunt Martha from Poughkeepsie is.
@MasonG said:
If nobody's collecting moderns, why would a dealer be looking for them?
You missed it!
I didn't miss anything. You said (and have been saying) that nobody collects moderns. Now, you're saying that prices are up due to demand for coins nobody collects.
You need to learn how to frame a logical statement.
Heaven forfend!
I'm trying to learn to communicate because I don't believe in logic or more accurately I don't believe logic can be expressed in symbolic language as we use.
The collectors of moderns, the demand, is largely coming from outside the hobby. Nobody inside the hobby will pay $3.50 for an MS-63 1966 penny but Aunt Martha from Poughkeepsie is.
I sell 2000 coins per year. 99.9% of them are sold to men. I'd be very happy if anyone's Aunt Martha would start collecting anything. 🙄
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
@JBK said:
Exactly where did half of the 1950D nickels go to? Most were saved by collectors. Did they find a way to beat the old adage that "you can't take it with you"?
Attrition never sleeps. A lot of them were bulldozed away after the house they were in flooded or burned down. Some were lost in Katrina along with countless million of Mardi Gras doubloons. They get lost in the mail, fall through cracks and stashed by people who don't dig them up prior to checking out. They are destroyed through intent, neglect and misadventure. They are inadvertantly put into circulation and recycled in old cars.
Nearly 1% a year will be destroyed and the less valuable the coin the higher the number.
This is the first time Copilot did the math for me!
_This is exactly right.
And it’s not just 1% per year.
It’s 1% per year compounded over 74 years.
Let’s do the math procedurally:
If
𝑁
0
is the number saved in 1950, and attrition is 1% per year:
𝑁
(
𝑡
)
𝑁
0
⋅
(
0.99
)
𝑡
For 74 years:
𝑁
(
74
)
𝑁
0
⋅
(
0.99
)
74
≈
𝑁
0
⋅
0.48
That means:
Half of all saved coins are gone even under the lowest plausible attrition rate._
This argument is ludicrous. My coin club has 150 members. In the 30 years I've been a member, there was only one fire and much of it was recovered. By your math, we should have lost more than one collection per year to fire and natural disasters.
Alternatively, everyone in the club loses 1% of their coins every year in the mail or the vacuum cleaner.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
The OP title is correct as they are tough. I've made 67s in 1955 and 1954 obr cents but never in 1966, can't even find them.
We should start a scavenger hunt for 1966 cents. Everyone pony up the best you currently have and check in by Xmas with any improvements.
@Coinscratch said:
The OP title is correct as they are tough. I've made 67s in 1955 and 1954 obr cents but never in 1966, can't even find them.
We should start a scavenger hunt for 1966 cents. Everyone pony up the best you currently have and check in by Xmas with any improvements.
If his thread title is correct, perhaps he should have quit while he was ahead.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
@Coinscratch said:
The OP title is correct as they are tough. I've made 67s in 1955 and 1954 obr cents but never in 1966, can't even find them.
We should start a scavenger hunt for 1966 cents. Everyone pony up the best you currently have and check in by Xmas with any improvements.
The OP is not describing an actual scarcity. He's describing a limited network effect. The availability of other coinage makes this apparent, starting with the TPG populations to anyone who is familiar with this data which he isn't.
Finding it in circulating change or bank rolls in the quality described here is difficult, but there isn't anything unusual about that.
His implied comparison is almost always 1960's US circulating designs. Yes, it's scarcer than many wheat cents, but that's not surprising either.
It's not tough to buy this coin. Despite the disproportionately low prices, it's about as easy a coin to buy as it gets in equivalent or comparable market quality. It's almost certainly easier to buy vs. in the vicinity of 99% of all circulating coins ever struck dated prior to 2000, and not a much lower percentage vs. others. If this coin is tough, so are in the vicinity of 99% of all coins ever made dated prior to the 21st century.
@Coinscratch said:
The OP title is correct as they are tough. I've made 67s in 1955 and 1954 obr cents but never in 1966, can't even find them.
We should start a scavenger hunt for 1966 cents. Everyone pony up the best you currently have and check in by Xmas with any improvements.
A whole life time (three generations) (60 years) has netted me about "25" of them and I actively searched for them.
MS-63 is listed at twenty cents in the Redbook. I'd be interested to see if these naysayers could produce a nice chBU in a month. They made two billion of them and they'll always be common. Since 1965 everybody thinks coins can save themselves but the reality is they failed the bottleneck. They're gone.
@Coinscratch said:
The OP title is correct as they are tough. I've made 67s in 1955 and 1954 obr cents but never in 1966, can't even find them.
We should start a scavenger hunt for 1966 cents. Everyone pony up the best you currently have and check in by Xmas with any improvements.
The OP is not describing an actual scarcity. He's describing a limited network effect. The availability of other coinage makes this apparent, starting with the TPG populations to anyone who is familiar with this data which he isn't.
Finding it in circulating change or bank rolls in the quality described here is difficult, but there isn't anything unusual about that.
His implied comparison is almost always 1960's US circulating designs. Yes, it's scarcer than many wheat cents, but that's not surprising either.
It's not tough to buy this coin. Despite the disproportionately low prices, it's about as easy a coin to buy as it gets in equivalent or comparable market quality. It's almost certainly easier to buy vs. in the vicinity of 99% of all circulating coins ever struck dated prior to 2000, and not a much lower percentage vs. others. If this coin is tough, so are in the vicinity of 99% of all coins ever made dated prior to the 21st century.
The PCGS population of old, red Gem+ copper is always low. But, regardless. To me, it's less about this supposed scarcity as it is the alacrity with which it is reported.
There is a total of about 30 1890 Indian cents in MS66 or better, including B, RB, and RD. Meanwhile, there's more than 500 MS66 or better 1966 cents. But no one is yelling that the INDIAN CENTS ARE DISAPPEARING or that they are becoming uncollectable.
OK. Fine. Let's say it's true. 1966 cents are tough in 66 or better. So freaking what? People who want to collect them will collect them in whatever grade is available given there are less than 200 1890 indian cents in 65 or better, I'm guessing most people collect in 64 or lower.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
@Coinscratch said:
The OP title is correct as they are tough. I've made 67s in 1955 and 1954 obr cents but never in 1966, can't even find them.
We should start a scavenger hunt for 1966 cents. Everyone pony up the best you currently have and check in by Xmas with any improvements.
The OP is not describing an actual scarcity. He's describing a limited network effect. The availability of other coinage makes this apparent, starting with the TPG populations to anyone who is familiar with this data which he isn't.
Finding it in circulating change or bank rolls in the quality described here is difficult, but there isn't anything unusual about that.
His implied comparison is almost always 1960's US circulating designs. Yes, it's scarcer than many wheat cents, but that's not surprising either.
It's not tough to buy this coin. Despite the disproportionately low prices, it's about as easy a coin to buy as it gets in equivalent or comparable market quality. It's almost certainly easier to buy vs. in the vicinity of 99% of all circulating coins ever struck dated prior to 2000, and not a much lower percentage vs. others. If this coin is tough, so are in the vicinity of 99% of all coins ever made dated prior to the 21st century.
The PCGS population of old, red Gem+ copper is always low. But, regardless. To me, it's less about this supposed scarcity as it is the alacrity with which it is reported.
There is a total of about 30 1890 Indian cents in MS66 or better, including B, RB, and RD. Meanwhile, there's more than 500 MS66 or better 1966 cents. But no one is yelling that the INDIAN CENTS ARE DISAPPEARING or that they are becoming uncollectable.
OK. Fine. Let's say it's true. 1966 cents are tough in 66 or better. So freaking what? People who want to collect them will collect them in whatever grade is available given there are less than 200 1890 large cents in 65 or better, I'm guessing most people collect in 64 or lower.
Actually, there’s less than one “1890 large cents in 65 or better”, or for that matter, in any grade.😉
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
@Coinscratch said:
The OP title is correct as they are tough. I've made 67s in 1955 and 1954 obr cents but never in 1966, can't even find them.
We should start a scavenger hunt for 1966 cents. Everyone pony up the best you currently have and check in by Xmas with any improvements.
The OP is not describing an actual scarcity. He's describing a limited network effect. The availability of other coinage makes this apparent, starting with the TPG populations to anyone who is familiar with this data which he isn't.
Finding it in circulating change or bank rolls in the quality described here is difficult, but there isn't anything unusual about that.
His implied comparison is almost always 1960's US circulating designs. Yes, it's scarcer than many wheat cents, but that's not surprising either.
It's not tough to buy this coin. Despite the disproportionately low prices, it's about as easy a coin to buy as it gets in equivalent or comparable market quality. It's almost certainly easier to buy vs. in the vicinity of 99% of all circulating coins ever struck dated prior to 2000, and not a much lower percentage vs. others. If this coin is tough, so are in the vicinity of 99% of all coins ever made dated prior to the 21st century.
The PCGS population of old, red Gem+ copper is always low. But, regardless. To me, it's less about this supposed scarcity as it is the alacrity with which it is reported.
There is a total of about 30 1890 Indian cents in MS66 or better, including B, RB, and RD. Meanwhile, there's more than 500 MS66 or better 1966 cents. But no one is yelling that the INDIAN CENTS ARE DISAPPEARING or that they are becoming uncollectable.
OK. Fine. Let's say it's true. 1966 cents are tough in 66 or better. So freaking what? People who want to collect them will collect them in whatever grade is available given there are less than 200 1890 large cents in 65 or better, I'm guessing most people collect in 64 or lower.
Actually, there’s less than one “1890 large cents in 65 or better”, or for that matter, in any grade.😉
Actually, I've got one. It's 3 inches in diameter and cast in aluminum.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Comments
No...
You might find a 62 year old Gem because millions of pre-1965 cents were set aside and they are still being released because of degradation and lack of value for anything except MS-65 and better. Many collectors cherry pick rolls of these older coins and dump the rest into circulation. By the time an individual has done this a few times he might release something that's Gem. There are tired longs holding bags of '66 cents as well. but as I've mentioned repeatedly very few of these were ever saved so very few can be released. It's been decades since I've seen a nice XF or AU '66 cent in circulation. No Gems.
People imagine if you make two billion of something it will be common forever so nobody bothered to save or collect them. The bottleneck has eaten them. They failed.
Why do you and @MasonG keep beating your heads against the wall?
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Are you more interested in this date as an investment or for pride of ownership? Pride of ownership is by far #1 for me.
cladking:
July 13, 2026 2:42PM "Without '66 pennies in old time collections there is no source for dealers to restock after they sell a coin."
July 13, 2026 2:50PM "If it were easily found then why are dealers restocking driving up the price of BU rolls?"
First, you say there is no source for dealers to restock, then you say that dealers restocking are driving prices up. Pick one. Can't be both.
The coins might have been junk. $5 was good money back then. Even if they were nice you could buy them back and still make a profit since time really is money.
It's not wrong but there is a huge dividing line at 1965. Before that everyone collected moderns and saved new coins and after it nobody did. Maybe we should say 1840- 1965 are "pre-moderns".
After decades of work on reverse engineering the pyramids I consider anything after 2000 BC to be "modern". Everything is relative and all coins are "modern".
I can't speak for @jmlanzaf, but it's too hot here to go outside and I'm taking a break from getting stuff ready to list on eBay.
After the first dozen times, it's hard to stop. You forget your even doing it.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
On the topic of "restocking"...
In order to have a need to restock, wouldn't one need to have already been carrying a stock which has been depleted by one's sales? If nobody collects moderns, how would one ever run out of said stock and anyway, why would one have acquired that stock in the first place if it's expected there will be no buyers for it? And if, recognizing that nobody collects those coins, one somehow managed to sell one's last piece, wouldn't one be happy to see it gone? Why would one even consider restocking?
I’d be satisfied with a good picture of one. @IkesT can you ask your copilot to create an image of a 1966 Cent in the grade MS67+?
Maybe with some light orange/red toning.
You're getting closer but I have a rotary phone and the baby takes a bath IN the toaster.
Just scrub it with steel wool and then 60 seconds in the toaster it smells as fresh as a brand new circuit board.
I use Google, but here you go:
The slab looks fake, lol. I wonder if you asked it for an NGC slab The coin would have more hits.
@Coinscratch Google took some artistic license with a few little things, like the mint mark.
Can anyone summarize the last 70 or so posts (since yesterday)?
This thread is hurting my brain (and I accept all the puns/jokes to follow that statement...)
"Can anyone summarize the last 70 or so posts (since yesterday)?"
Nobody collects moderns.
Dealers are having a hard time restocking them.
People are using search engines to find coins but you can't find rolls and bags with a search engine if there aren't any.
If nobody's collecting moderns, why would a dealer be looking for them?
Same as the first 70
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
1966 Cents do exist in vast quantities maybe but nobody can find one nor do they want one. People may try but they won’t succeed because they don’t exist maybe.
Study cladkings writings and you’ll find the same arguments with the same usual suspects. I find it entertaining (though I skip over any post consisting of more than two paragraphs) being an optimistic hunter as we probably all are.
In short cladking is bringing to light the hopeful aspirations of the modern frontier while using his own equations and based on years of study while Mason who apparently is the numbers guy find’s fault with these equations because they are only a small portion of the overall mintage and likes to point out the impossibilities of his equations.
Enter the Dragon; along comes WCC who also questions the equations but not from ratios, but rather a psychological opinion then stir in a little jmlanzaf to help keep things in perspective, add a little artwork by IkesT and voila!
Thoughts?
Did I miss anyone?
You missed it!
A $3 roll of 1966 cents now goes for $12 and they are selling for $3.50 each plus postage. They are turning $12 into $175. Prices are rising because it's gets harder to restock as the low hanging fruit disappears.
Moderns have been offered at retail for years but few coins sold. Now the supply is apparently not keeping up with the demand because, ...drum roll please... ...there is almost no supply and never was.
Copilot wishes remain unmentioned.
Some moderns I know aren't out there and nobody even notices.
Pennies are a horse of another color and I paid less attention to them so have less experience.
What makes pennies different is that unlike the larger denominations some dates were saved in massive quantity and all were saved in significant quantity. With mintages in the tens of billions it gave me pause.
I came to the pennies largely through mint sets because even though all the pennies were well made there are some dates less well made. Nice 1971 (P) cents are mangled in the sets and rolls are no better. Over the years the mint sets have gone away through attrition and some of the pennies are almost invariably ruined by tarnish (like the '68 and '71). Some date BU rolls usually go bad like the '73-S even though the mint set coin is often pristine.
It's complicated mess but there are very scarce dates no one seems to know about and the '66 may or may not be one of the scarcest all the way down in lowly chBU. It is almost certainly tough in Gem. The only way we'll ever know is if collectors assemble sets because this gets the coins sorted and then when a wholesaler says "I can't source 1966 cents in chBU", we can be certain that Gems are very scarce because only 4% of mintage was Gem.
We've been over this ad nauseum. What isn't "good enough" for you is good enough for practically everyone else. PCGS has graded over 550 1966 cents as MS-66 RD or better. That's not a low number, except to you. An MS-66 isn't "tough" to buy and the $72 eBay price someone posted earlier here isn't low either, again except to you.
It's a non-issue.
I watched many usage patters for pennies as well as their distribution and I talked to people who saved coins or worked in the markets. I know there were bags and bags and bags of '66 cents saved but I also know it much fewer than most dates. I even know they were less likely to go bad than many. But attrition on them was huge in the '70's when people got tired of sitting on a non-performing asset. Even though there were dozens and dozens of bags of '64 pennies being released monthly you'd still see a '66 in BU once in a while.
Here's another way to picture the reality. The number of SMS coins is easily estimated because about two million were made and attrition has only whittled them down to ~600,000. Yet when you see collections and accumulations the SMS's dwarf the number of circulation strikes seen. The SMS are usually MS-65/6 and circulation strikes are 62/3. With only half being chBU and 4% of those should be Gem. This would mean 4% of 300,000 are Gem if all '66 pennies are in evidence; (12,000) coins.
There is no good reason to believe they aren't in evidence because people don't collect moderns. People are imaging two billion coins in hiding waiting for a fool to pay good money for them but the coins are gone.
With only 48 going MS67 and 16 making 67+ and that is likely skewed.
Certainly there are more than 64 Lincoln cent collectors who prefer the best and true gems. 65/66 does absolutely nothing for me.
This is where you go wrong, assuming your experience is representative when it isn't. You know that the US Mint sold in the vicinity of 2MM to 4MM mint sets each year from 1968 to 1990, yet you've claimed this coinage was "not collected" or "hardly collected" because you don't see as many of these coins in the quality you insist you should at the prices you insist it should be worth. Or, everyone you asked didn't either, as if their experience is anymore representative than yours. You've also inferred and are doing it now again, that this coinage "wasn't collected" or "hardly collected" out of circulation for the same reason.
Look at the TPG data for other coins you don't know anything about. Look at websites and auctions for coins you don't collect. Look at dealer websites for this coainge.
Yes, if anyone can buy a 1796-1797 half dollar any day of the week in some qualify, these random coins you decide to start a thread on aren't as scarce as you claim and imply.
No one consults you when they add a coin to or a sell a coin from their collection.
Everything is relative. There are no absolutes in reality except that there are rules by which reality unfolds. We imagine absolutes like that any coin can be classified as "modern" if it's less than 62 years old.
In 1957 when I started collecting the current coinage was being chased by millions of collectors and the 1950-D nickel was virtually "ancient" to us. It was also a very valuable coin and worth over $300 in today's money.
There were approximately 100 times as many '50-D's as there are nice gemmy '66 one cent coins. The population has nearly doubled.
Almost half of the '50-D's are gone now so there are only 50 times as many as gemmy '66's.
Don't make make me consult my Copilot!
I presume there are some duplicates in this data, and others not in holders qualifying for the grade too. Still, these numbers aren't low for a condition census grade, nowhere near it.
As for how many want it, the real question is how many want to pay for "full freight", which is a not even noticeable fraction of those who collect it.
You're quoting and responding to yourself now? Be careful of those voices in your head.
Exactly where did half of the 1950D nickels go to? Most were saved by collectors. Did they find a way to beat the old adage that "you can't take it with you"?
And I answered that. Read what I wrote.
You're still going by your experience. Your experience isn't what you imply. Your reply makes it evident you don't understand how to estimate survivorship and quality distribution.
I just told you I personally own 100 pillars (1752-1772) in a TPG holder excluding Mexico with only two 8R which are the most common. Are you trying to tell me these "moderns" are scarcer as you did before with 60's and 70's Soviet coinage because you couldn't find it?
There isn't anyone who actually understands the coin market who believes what you're claiming and implying. With this Soviet coinage, you were telling me that a 15-25 year old coin from the USSR (a major country) is "rare" due to abnormally high attrition, so high apparently it was higher than an entire series two centuries older with effectively no collecting and almost no communication with the rest of the world. Who believes this other than you?
You're responding to and arguing with yourself
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Attrition never sleeps. A lot of them were bulldozed away after the house they were in flooded or burned down. Some were lost in Katrina along with countless million of Mardi Gras doubloons. They get lost in the mail, fall through cracks and stashed by people who don't dig them up prior to checking out. They are destroyed through intent, neglect and misadventure. They are inadvertantly put into circulation and recycled in old cars.
Nearly 1% a year will be destroyed and the less valuable the coin the higher the number.
This is the first time Copilot did the math for me!
_This is exactly right.
And it’s not just 1% per year.
It’s 1% per year compounded over 74 years.
Let’s do the math procedurally:
If
𝑁
0
is the number saved in 1950, and attrition is 1% per year:
𝑁
(
𝑡
)
𝑁
0
⋅
(
0.99
)
𝑡
For 74 years:
𝑁
(
74
)
𝑁
0
⋅
(
0.99
)
74
≈
𝑁
0
⋅
0.48
That means:
Half of all saved coins are gone even under the lowest plausible attrition rate._
I didn't miss anything. You said (and have been saying) that nobody collects moderns. Now, you're saying that prices are up due to demand for coins nobody collects.
You need to learn how to frame a logical statement.
Heaven forfend!
I'm trying to learn to communicate because I don't believe in logic or more accurately I don't believe logic can be expressed in symbolic language as we use.
The collectors of moderns, the demand, is largely coming from outside the hobby. Nobody inside the hobby will pay $3.50 for an MS-63 1966 penny but Aunt Martha from Poughkeepsie is.
I sell 2000 coins per year. 99.9% of them are sold to men. I'd be very happy if anyone's Aunt Martha would start collecting anything. 🙄
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
This argument is ludicrous. My coin club has 150 members. In the 30 years I've been a member, there was only one fire and much of it was recovered. By your math, we should have lost more than one collection per year to fire and natural disasters.
Alternatively, everyone in the club loses 1% of their coins every year in the mail or the vacuum cleaner.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Its on my last braincells to and there on life support 🙌
The OP title is correct as they are tough. I've made 67s in 1955 and 1954 obr cents but never in 1966, can't even find them.
We should start a scavenger hunt for 1966 cents. Everyone pony up the best you currently have and check in by Xmas with any improvements.
If his thread title is correct, perhaps he should have quit while he was ahead.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
The OP is not describing an actual scarcity. He's describing a limited network effect. The availability of other coinage makes this apparent, starting with the TPG populations to anyone who is familiar with this data which he isn't.
Finding it in circulating change or bank rolls in the quality described here is difficult, but there isn't anything unusual about that.
His implied comparison is almost always 1960's US circulating designs. Yes, it's scarcer than many wheat cents, but that's not surprising either.
It's not tough to buy this coin. Despite the disproportionately low prices, it's about as easy a coin to buy as it gets in equivalent or comparable market quality. It's almost certainly easier to buy vs. in the vicinity of 99% of all circulating coins ever struck dated prior to 2000, and not a much lower percentage vs. others. If this coin is tough, so are in the vicinity of 99% of all coins ever made dated prior to the 21st century.
A whole life time (three generations) (60 years) has netted me about "25" of them and I actively searched for them.
MS-63 is listed at twenty cents in the Redbook. I'd be interested to see if these naysayers could produce a nice chBU in a month. They made two billion of them and they'll always be common. Since 1965 everybody thinks coins can save themselves but the reality is they failed the bottleneck. They're gone.
The PCGS population of old, red Gem+ copper is always low. But, regardless. To me, it's less about this supposed scarcity as it is the alacrity with which it is reported.
There is a total of about 30 1890 Indian cents in MS66 or better, including B, RB, and RD. Meanwhile, there's more than 500 MS66 or better 1966 cents. But no one is yelling that the INDIAN CENTS ARE DISAPPEARING or that they are becoming uncollectable.
OK. Fine. Let's say it's true. 1966 cents are tough in 66 or better. So freaking what? People who want to collect them will collect them in whatever grade is available given there are less than 200 1890 indian cents in 65 or better, I'm guessing most people collect in 64 or lower.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Actually, there’s less than one “1890 large cents in 65 or better”, or for that matter, in any grade.😉
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Actually, I've got one. It's 3 inches in diameter and cast in aluminum.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.