I was born in the 60’s and I regularly found Indian Head pennies growing up.
I don’t remember seeing one for a long time although. Are they/were they being pulled out of circulation? Or just filling up people’s collections?
If it had had an “S” mint mark (for San Francisco) it would have been worth a good bit more.
Yes, I assume they’re being pulled out by collectors and/or interested folks. I haven’t seen an Indian Head Penny or Buffalo nickel in a while. All the pre-1964 dimes and quarters were taken out for their silver content long ago. I don’t know if the change machines at banks automatically pull them out of circulation like they do for damaged coinage.
There were “only” 1.8 billion Indian Head pennies ever made. 7.9 billion pennies were minted just in 2021.
I wanted a snack out of the vending machine at work several years ago.
Since the machine was known to be persnickety, I pulled out the newest, crispest dollar I had in my wallet. I had just gotten it as change from a convenience store.
Put it in the machine, machine spit it back out. Huh, weird. Flipped it over and put it in again. As it was feeding in I saw the words “SILVER CERTIFICATE”. Fortunately, the machine rejected it again.
It’s a 1935 $1 silver certificate, worth when I checked just a few pennies more than a dollar. I folded it up and keep it in my wallet just because.
I figured that either someone raided grandpa’s collection, or someone passed away and whoever came in to the stack of silver certificates realized they weren’t worth keeping and spent them.
It’s fun finding old coins like that. I once got an Indian Head nickel in change from a vending machine.
The post about some kid spending a collection reminded me of a boy I hung out with when I was young. He showed up one day and said “Hey, let’s go get milkshakes!” We all just looked at him, as none of us ever had much money. Then he reached in his pocket and brought out several silver dollars. I was a young coin collector at that point and said “Hey, let me look at those.” They were Carson City silver dollars, which, if you are not familiar with them, can be worth quite a bit. I asked him where he got them and he said he found them in his dad’s dresser drawer. I told him he’d better put them back, as they were probably worth a lot of money, but he just laughed and said something to the effect of his dad not knowing what was in that drawer, and we went and had milkshakes all around.
We didn’t see him for a month after that.
When I was a kid, my father had a stack of old 19th-century silver dollars on his dresser. One day I took them and spent them on comic books and candy. I could have sold them for several times their face value, but being a dumb kid, I spent them at face value.
My father had a violent temper, and I couldn’t sit down for several weeks.
Banknote collectors will cringe when reading about folding a crisp banknote.
They shouldn’t; it’s not worth anything.
Just because it’s not worth anything doesn’t mean it’s not fun to collect. Besides, it’s worth at least a dollar.
Also, banknote collectors may not have any rational basis for the cringe if it’s a common, circulated note but many instinctively abhor any thought of folding a banknote. For them any fold in a banknote is clearly the work of Satan.
I"m pretty astounded that the US still mints pennies. It’s estimated that Canada saved about $11 million/year when they phased out the penny a decade ago. The dollar bill has not been made in Canada since 1989, and many millions more were saved every year.
The U.S. government would like to phase dollar bills, and pennies, as there would, indeed, be some substantial cost savings. However, there has been consistent resistance to the idea from citizens, largely on the basis of (a) tradition and symbology of the $1 bill and the penny, and (b) people being convinced that, without pennies, they would be charged more for purchases, because prices would be rounded up to the nearest 5-cent increment.
The U.S. Mint has issued dollar coins at various points, including the most recent, gold-toned coin, which was issued from 2000 through 2011 (and some issued after that, specifically for collectors); they never caught on with Americans, and did not see much usage.
I’m part of a small but vital group of people urging the return of the halfpenny.
In Canada, there was lots of resistance from citizens, based on much the same complaints. The mint just stopped making the penny. And in the case of dollar coins, they minted lots of them, and just stopped printing the paper bills altogether, full stop. After a period of time, the bills wore out and were not replaced, and people got used to the dollar coins, and the bitching stopped.
back in the early 90’s, I went to cash a check through the drive-thru for $200.
The bank gave me ten 20 dollar bills which were consecutively numbered serial numbers that were printed in 1936.
I didn’t notice it right away. They were in very good condition
Needless to say, I had to go back to the bank and get another $200. Those 20 dollar bills are currently in my safe deposit box.
Kind of wish I knew the back story. Like money stuffed in a mattress. But they only do that in cartoons and movies, right? I don’t know if they are worth anything, other than the novelty.
Yeah, that. There would be no need to change any prices at all in most retail sales. Only the total sale e.g. groceries or gasoline, would need to be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel.
You need to round only when paying with cash. There’s no reason to round if using a credit card or a check. I believe this is common in Canada and other places that have eliminated the cent/penny coins.
My guess is they lived in the Federal Reserve vault for the whole time.