# How often do you get a wheat penny

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-get-a-wheat-penny/409685>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 27, 2007, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-get-a-wheat-penny/409685 "2007-06-27T21:06:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-get-a-wheat-penny/409685/21 "2007-06-29T19:07:03Z")

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Day to day life I get about 2-3 wheaties a year. I get exicited every now and again when I hear the odd chink of a silver coin. A while ago I was getting a soda from the machine at work and my boss was getting a candy bar. I stopped him when I heard the noise in the jinggle of coins in his hand. I pointed out the 1960 (or so) silver quarter. He said so what and was going to put it in the machine anyways. I gave him a newer quarter and considered that my bonus for the year. 😃

I’ve got about two dozen silver coins over the last 20 years.

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**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-get-a-wheat-penny/409685/22 "2007-06-29T19:22:27Z")

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I rarely see them anymore, maybe one every year or two and yes, I do look.

Last time I saw an appreciable increase was when, back in college, I worked a friend’s fireworks stand as a favor to him. Going through the change at night, I came across a bunch of older coins every single night. Best I can figure is that to kids, the only thing maybe more important than a coin collection is firecrackers and bottle rockets. They apparently were raiding their, or their Dad’s, collection.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-get-a-wheat-penny/409685/23 "2007-06-29T19:38:49Z")

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Funny you should ask; I got one just a couple of weeks ago. But before that, it must have been at least several years. Canadian coins are much more common; a few per year (including sometimes nickels, which are fun, because some of them are magnetic).

Whenever I get a wheatie, I always check the date, just on the off-off-off chance it’s a 1943 copper. I’m sure there are other things which would potentially make one valuable, but I’m not a collector.

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**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-do-you-get-a-wheat-penny/409685/24 "2007-06-30T02:34:02Z")

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I’ve been most lucky finding silver nickles. I’ve found 2 in the last year. They’re easy to recognize if you know what to look for and most people don’t even realize they exist.

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