Coin values are based on the individual coin, not just its design. That is, all wheat pennies don’t have the same value; the value depends on the specific year, mint and condition. For example, the 1914 D penny is worth over 200 times as much as the 1914 P in the same condition. And the famous 1943 copper penny is worth tens of thousands of dollars.
It’ll take a long time for a common date & mint mark to achieve any value. And of course, what is the demand for them? Scarcity is meaningless if there’s no demand.
I hope it happens in my lifetime, as I have over 10,000 of them.
The most common Indian Head cents, which were discontinued in 1909, are only worth a few bucks in average circulated condition. So, for common Lincolns, we’re talking centuries, not years… assuming some numismatic holocaust doesn’t occur.
A 1913 cent was worth about the same as a quarter now. Let’s say a standard, used in circulation, cent from 1913 can be bought from a dealer for ~85 cents. The price a dealer will pay you is a fraction of that. You just might beat inflation if the coin is not in too bad of shape.
I saw the thread title and thought the same. Not even the largely indistinguishable metal lump ones but a recognizable ancient coin can still be had for “I bought this on a whim 'cause it was neat” prices.
Thought I might have had a '43 copper. The thing was very scuffed and I couldn’t make out the date, even with a magnifier, but it looked like 1943. Took it to a local coin shop who told me it was definitely not a '43. There was another man in the shop with a young boy. I asked him if he wanted a wheat penny and he was very excited about it.
More detailed answer: when copper gets over $10 per pound and the government legalizes smelting the darn things.
Long answer is with the exception of a few dates and varieties, wheat cents as a general rule are pretty much not worth saving. Because they made tons every year and people save/hoard the crap out of them. And even if we get a big melt like we have with silver, common will continue to be common. The favorite example I always used was the paper silver certificates. You could send them in before a certain date the the USTD would send you actual silver; often for smaller amounts granules in official sealed plastic tubes. $1 and $2 silver certs? Worn at all I spend them. They are THAT common. EVERYONE kept them because they would be rare after the recall/cash-in (technically it wasn’t a recall as they continued to be legal tender) Now those little tubes on the other hand; last I can say for sure they were going for 10x-20x or better their melt value. Those damn things are indeed rare and hard to find sometimes. Go figure.
probably not for a long time after someone comes to their senses and stops minting pennies (and withdraws them from circulation.) But that’ll never happen; I’m sure the supplier of blanks to the US Mint has a bunch of lobbyists making sure we keep minting shitloads of the useless things, much like the sole supplier of paper for bills makes damn sure Congress never passes a resolution or law removing the $1 bill from circulation.
I’d honestly like to see us follow Canada’s lead. Ditch the penny and get rid of bills smaller than $5. Actually, I’d rather see no bills smaller than $10 kind of like Japan, who uses coins for everything less than 1000 yen (10 USD.) 'course they still circulate 1 yen coins, so…
Why? I’ve got maybe 20-25 wheaties in the pen/paperclip tray in my work desk’s top center desk drawer. Along with a trilobite, and a couple of neat rocks.
But why do people collect large numbers of things of negligible investment value?
Modest proposal: I wonder how many ancient Roman coins are still in existence. If there are a sufficient number, you could use the ancient Roman coins as $5 coins since that isn’t too far from their actual worth among the ones that are not so worn that you can’t tell that they’re coins.
I was basically limiting my answer to Wheaties but you are indeed correct.
This is one of those things numismatists love to debate over a few beers. We cannot legally smelt Lincoln cents but sometimes people did anyway as a local means of gaining copper for other purposes and the government always could as a way of (so to speak) recycling. Ones deemed worn or damaged would be turned in through the banks and made into new material from the time they were first minted. And it is indeed true that you find them less often in circulation but a lot of that can be put on us; they look different and folks tend to throw them aside. Do that for more than 50 years and less and less are circulated. My guess would be about 1/30th survive in some form as coins (with some of those being encased or used in other forms of adornment) and maybe another 100th or so in altered states such as elongated pennies. It is a SWAG (scientific wild-assed guess) and best and very much open to debate but knowing the number of hoards I know of of both very slight collectors interest coins and no interest/numismatic value coins, I would say that is as best a guess as anyone will ever make.
And with silver, which has been smelted and somewhat tracked, we have no real firm idea of say the percentage of Mercury dimes left. So getting a good figure for cents I would say is impossible.
No idea. My ex would save every Bicentennial quarter that came into her hands; she had a big can of them. My oldest boy took care of the problem when he emptied the whole thing at the local arcade. I was secretly pleased.
Yeah - and I should specify that I’m talking about essentially fungible items - like coins. It would be a different thing (IMO) if one were trying to collect a penny from each year. Or each of the state quarters. Or something. I have a friend who collects baseball cards and hot wheels. He has certain criteria of what he looks for, and I guess he enjoys the effort more than looking for a profit. Tho I don’t really understand the attraction, I guess it seems different to me than just amassing cans of coins.
