Rolling up the spare change this weekend for the first time in a couple of months, I came across not one, but three George VI pennies: one from 1941, one from 1942, and one from 1952.
I think the 1941 penny might be the oldest coin I’ve ever received in my change - I don’t remember ever getting a George V coin, and I don’t think they had time to start minting any Edward VIII coins before he abdicated.
So, what’s the oldest coin you’ve ever got in your change?
I found it in 1996 - it’s in very good condition. Not especially valuable, but I treasure it.
I’ve gotten several cents from the first decade of the Lincoln heads, 1909-1919. Those would have been in and out of circulation for about 90 years before I got them. All pretty warn. Can’t say as I’ve ever run across an Indian head though.
Probably the easiest to find in US circulation are nickels from 1938 to 1945.
I’ve had pre-decimal coins (i.e. pre-1966) in my change on one or two occasions, but they’ve still been Elizabeth II. I can’t remember what they were. Sixpences I think. I do remember my mother once showing me a George VI coin that she had got in her change.
I’ve got a nickel from 1903. It’s got a profile of a woman I take to be a personification of Liberty on the front, and a big Roman numeral V on the back. It’s pretty worn out, though. You can barely tell that it’s supposed to be a coin.
I used to have an Indian head penny, but I seem to have lost it.
I think I’ve gotten a George V one before, which is pretty impressive. I’ve definitely had the odd George VI, and I tend to accumulate the first Elizabeth ones (the ones with the ribbons in her hair) and any earlier monarchs.
Next to the drain in a shower I cleaned once a week, I found an Indian Head Cent. It seemed like a peculiar place to drop a coin.
I think 1937 wheat penny (The US doesn’t have a penny, technically, but screw that odd bit of nonsense. And who is going to call it a “Bison Nickle”? C’mon, let’s get a grip people!)
I like the wheat reverse, always have. And - 2009 is just around the corner - so if the government, which is almost by definition in a state of cognitive dissonance - can somehow manage to discontinue the penny because of high copper and zinc prices and still make some for collectors at least - I think they should return to the wheat reverse.
That’s the “Liberty” nickle. If you should find one dated 1913 (unlikely) it is worth quite the fortune to collectors. I vaguely remember comic book advertisements offering great sums for this coin as a “teaser” or whatever. I never found one. I like to carry old, obsolete coinage with my regular change. Much more interesting than dead presidents or other figures installed to assuage political interests. To my untrained eyes, the US coinage from circa 1878-1938 was the “golden age” for US coinage.
Before UK coinage decimalisation in 1971 it was quite common to receive Victorian pennies in your change. The oldest I ever saw was 1870.
Coins were designed for Edward VIII and a few were struck, and were intended for issue in 1937, but when he abdicated in Dec 1936 they were all melted down except for a handful of brass threepenny bits that accidentally got into circulation (and I do literally mean a handful - probably fewer than ten). Some of them were later found and sold at auction for considerable sums of money.
Coupla weeks ago I thought one of my pennies was some sorta Canadian penny (you know the feeling). Then I looked closer…and found that I had a 1903 Indian Head penny. Awesome.
Coins will obviously become rarer as the time since they were minted increases. And that, of course, is a major reason why it’s unusual in Canada nowadays to find any coin with a king on it.
However, I think there is another factor operating (at least in Canada). Specifically, by 1967-1968 the price of silver had risen to the point where Canadian “silver” coins, by virtue of their relatively high silver content, were worth more than their face value. As a result, many, if not most were melted down strictly to harvest their silver. This led to a very sudden, very sharp, drop in the prevalence of all Canadian silver coins minted before 1968. By definition, this included all those coins with a king on them.
As a result, in my opinion anyway, even coins bearing the Queen’s image but minted before 1968 are almost as scarce as the older coins with the king on them. My point, then, is that the rarity of, say, a 1966 quarter or dime has nothing to do with its age (it’s not old at all) or having the image of a king on it (it isn’t there). No, not at all. Rather, it’s all due to the fact that the ‘silver’ coins of that era were melted down by the tens of millions.
Living 25 miles from Canada and with both Dad and my youthful self coin collectors, we ended up with a truly odd assortment of coins-from-change. (And Dad was close friends with the man who owned the local bus company, a neighbor, so they had a deal where Dad could take home and sort their daily change collections, in exchange for rolling it for them and of course replacing anything he took out of it.)
We of course got a lot of Canadian pennies, the occasional Indian head, and were able to fill in most of the mildly-rare early Lincoln coins (not the real rarities but the low-mintage ones). Some George V and quite a lot of George VI Canadians – but this was in the late 1950s, when George VI had been dead less than ten years. We pulled an About Uncirculated 1909-VDB (Phila., not S.F., dammit!) out of the bus company take once. And every month or so, this odd penny would show up with a sundew for reverse. One of the old Newfoundland pre-Confederation coins! We put together about half of the Newfoundland one-cent issue out of circulation, several years after it wasn’t a country any more, which excited me as a kid and still does to some extent.
The silver was intriguing, too. Not much Canadian in that, though there was still some. Mercury dimes were pretty common, Liberty standing quarters not so much so. I think we got a couple of Liberty walking halves. And every once in a while one of the more common old Barber coins would show up.
Oldest coin from circulation? A “shield” nickel – the first design for the nickel five-cent piece, issued for only a couple years. I don’t remember the date, though.
You have a Liberty Head five cent piece. Yours was worth $1.75 in 2001. That’s my most current book.
I have my son’s coin collection, so I can’t really say what the oldest I’ve gotten in change. I have several Indian Head pennies and Morgan silver dollars.
I have an 1865 three cent silver piece, that would be worth about $500 if it didn’t have a hole in it :rolleyes: I think my grandfather shot it. :smack: I’ve thought about wearing as a necklace, but I wear gold, not silver.
Some of the other responses have been much more impressive than my Geo VI coin - and I agree with Karl Gauss about the silver value making a lot of the early coins rare.
I have a “shin plaster” kicking around somewhere - a 25 ¢ bank note, dating I think from the 20s or 30s, when 25 ¢ was real money!
I get that feeling quite a bit. 
I’ve had a very few George VI cents. Mostly the oldest coins I see are from the sixties. I just looked in my pouch and found a 1964 cent! 
I guess it takes around 25 to 35 years for a coin to actually wear out, if it is in frequent use? Or are there buried drifts of old pennies?
I once received a penny from the 1890’s. It was worn enough that I couldn’t decipher the last digit. I left it in a capped cup in my old car. When I finally retrieved the cup some six months after my sister adopted that vehicle, the penny wasn’t there. Bummer.
Shield nickels - 1866 to 1883.
I use to roll the change for my Grandpa and loved finding old change. ( Of course, anything old to me as a kid was before 1970.) but I found and still have a mercury dime from the 1900-1910 time frame.
I’ve also a nice little collection of foriegn coins ( now all obselete since the euro) from received change.
