Why Aren't People Hoarding Memorial Cents By Now?

This sounds like some sort of Pokemon the kids talk about these days. I am sure it isn't, but as a non-drinker; what is it?

people always make such far fetched statements.


so you actually think in the year 2165 you will be seeing memorial cents from 1970s on a regular basis?


this isn't serious right? half of the country? 160 million people? I know hundreds of people and I would be surprised if more than a few did this..

Perhaps there is a little hyperbole here. ;)

But houses have been damaged (even collapsed) by hoarding and this includes coins.

The mint has made an average of about 30 pennies for each man woman and child in the country for many decades. Of course many of these coins are gone since zinc virtually evaporates and the copper cent has no value except as metal. But there are billions of pennies sitting in change jars and elsewhere not circulating. While it's true everyone doesn't have a five gallon jug of pennies it is quite true that most people have pennies sitting around somewhere and most pennies are sitting in larger accumulations and hoards. The FED couldn't come close to approaching the number of pennies as the aggregate number sitting in large (>1000) accumulations and hoards. These coins will be around for a very long time nbecause their numbers are staggering. It would require tremendous effort to even try to dispose of all of them and billions would be overlooked and survive well into the next century.

No matter how this plays out over the coming decades there will be large numbers of survivors. Ultimately the number of survivors will depend largely on how many are set aside by collectors but in the meantime you simply can't get rid of something so ubiquitous as the memorial cent that has been made in tremendous numbers for 57 years. When they shut Niagra Falls off for maintenance and cleaning years ago they recovered several truck loads of coins from the bottom. Of course it was mostly pennies.

I was over to the LCS and a LWC hoarder had brought in a 117 pounds of wheat cents in coffee cans all separated in 09-19, 20-29, 30-39 on to 58`s and all in between in multiples.. I really wanted to look them over for some good ones. but he was selling them by the pound on ebay. He sold most but hadn't shipped yet. I was to late.

Some were corroded so they weren't stored well. I would have bought them all to check for myself. I still have 30-40 rolls for my grandson.

Thank you everyone for contributing to this great thread, especially cladking and BadThad (you guys always have great insight). I am wondering if you guys will write a book about Modern Coins and what you guys have spoken so much about.

So I guess the moral of this is: Rather than just hoarding them in large quantities and store in buckets/water jug, we should:
1) Save high-end (GEM BU) cents
2) Look for Varieties
3) Look for "Conditional Rarity"

I do save copper LMC, but I'm not saving it for the copper value.
I figure that just like LWC, LMC won't be as easy to find in circulation in the future as they are now. So if I want to find "old" coins for face value, now would be as best of time as ever.

Heh heh. Most phones are the size as Palm Pilots now, they don't mind those, right?

To me, it costs more to sort / store them then it is worth.