Eisenhower dollars were minted between 1970 and 1978. I tallied mint figures and got an approxiamate total of 685 million Ikes produced.
Most did not contain silver, so there’s no reason to melt them down.
I doubt the common Ike dollar is worth much more than face value–so hoarding of vast quantities probably isn’t profitable.
My question then, what happen to the 3/4s of a billion coins? Are there still rolls of these coins sitting in some banks’ vaults? What would it take to get some of these coins at face value?
They’ve run off with all the Kennedy halves, which are still being minted. Not to mention the Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea dollars. People hoard things regardless of value. I’m finding that most of the quarters in circulation are still pre-statehood, so people may be hoarding some of them as well.
We pay the public $1.05 to sell them to us. We resell them for about $1.25 in quantity in the store. We probably purchase 50-100 or more/day. People have a habit of saving just about anything that is somewhat different. They’re all still out there. Just spread over 50 million people, each of whom saved a few.
I acquired some a few years back as novelty gifts. At the time it was still just possible to get them by request from a bank, but I was told that they were being withdrawn from circulation. Apparently it was a combination of three things: the mint didn’t want them competing with later dollar coins (Susan B’s and Sacagaweas), their rarity was starting to push their collector’s value beyond their face value, and banks didn’t want to have to deal with them anymore (apparently there’s a cost to accomodating each separate type of coinage).
BTW: How many people here are old enough to remember the bicentennial (1976) issue coins? Those have disappeared due to collecter’s value.
Not sure if it’s still true or not, but it seemed US army bases overseas were the repositories for “unpopular” currency. For my first job I worked on an army base in Germany, and you got tons of Eisenhower dollars in change (and JFK 50 cent pieces as well). I was surprized, and asked, and was told that the bases were where all the unpopular currency ended up.
Many years later I stumbled on an unlikely place to find Susan B Anthony dollars: Ecuador. It seems Ecuador just “uses” US currency. So they take dollar bills, whatever. And for change, they used a lot of Susan B Anthony coins. It was bizarre. Not sure if they have any currency of their own, but for everything I bought, it was like being in the states.
Pretty much, it means that the mint stops reissuing them at face value. Although technically they’re still legal tender, the mint stops accepting orders for them from the banks, and instead sells them to whoever bids the highest price- coin dealers and such.
Per the OP … 3/4 of a billion coins is only about 2-1/2 coins per American.
It’s not hard to believe that almost everyone who’s not impoverished and is older than ago 10 now has one or two they got as a gift from grandma sitting in a dresser drawer someplace. I bet I do.
Factor in the foreign use, where the durability of coins over bills is a major attractant, and suddenly it’s not hard to understand where they all went.
It’s easy to forget there are ~1/3rd of a *billion *Americans.
Hopefully this isn’t too much of a hijack, but until last June, I had no idea the US “gold” dollar coins, very similar to a Canadian loonie. Until I got my change from a vending machine at the Stratosphere hotel in Vegas and got back 3 dollar coins, I believe with George Washington on one side.
What were they?
There is zero collector value in bicentennial coins. They were minted in higher numbers than other years, specifically the Kennedy halves - still the highest mintage of any half-dollar series.
I have several. One I found in a gravel driveway - it had been there for so long that the reverse side is completely worn smooth, and only the face is recognizable. Poor Ike.
Don’t bother, you can get them from any bank in $25 rolls.
The sad thing is that the government has spent millions advertising the existence of these coins and still people have no idea they exist.
I actuall quite like them–it helps me save money. At the end of the day, I put all my change in a jar. If I have dollar coins, they go there too. Also, they’re nice to have in your pocket. You think you’re all poor and have no money just some change, then you realize you’ve got nearly $10 bucks right there!