Are Nice Condition LMC's Worth Anything?

I figure they're worth 3 cents on their copper content alone. I believe pre-1982 Lincoln Memorial Cents will one day be similar to Wheaties from the 1940s and 1950s.

Hi again. I found some time to take some (not so great) pictures of 5 of the coins. I'll post 1 picture here, but I posted the obverse and reverse of each coin in the grading section.

These look like spenders to me (a coin jar at the every least)

They look fine to me and good enough for a nice starter collection. They appear to be mostly red AU-MS.

The very nice one are good for putting into albums to keep a collection current..

I have to disagree. Certainly mintages of the pre-65 issues were extremely high but the savings rates of these was always exceedingly high as well. Many of the post-'65 issues had few saved because people don't collect moderns as widely. Attrition on the zinc issues is staggering as often even BU rolls corrode.

There are various cents that are actually pretty scarce even in nice MS-64. The '68 and '84-P leap to mind but there are others as well. Unlike with the old coins that are very few in XF or AU because there are few collections of moderns. A lot of the early moderns are becoming exceedingly difficult to find in pocket change and when they do appear they are in horrid condition.

If collectors ever start collecting later issues then you'll see a completely new pricing system for them.

This attitude has been the biggest detriment to the hobby for many years now. However now the price guides are fast becoming an even bigger detriment. Many moderns simply sell for far more than the guides list because the guides are behind the times and because they report "wholesale" prices. Very few moderns trade at wholesale because they can be retailed and wholesale prices are for typical coins which are often just ugly and tarnished. It's great for the sellers who pay absurdly low prices but it's bad for the market and it's highly misleading.

Mint set coins are specially made with higher pressure and new dies but they tend to often be low quality as well. They get scratched up and then after decades in mint set plastic they tarnish. Finding coins in MS-65 can be very difficult especially since most of the mint sets have been lost by neglect and abuse over all these years. Some of these coins were hard to find nice even when sets were plentiful and pristine but now they are neither.

Dealers just don't like moderns so most of what they buy has gone straight into their cash registers for decades now. I've even gotten very rare 1969 quarters made for circulation in Gem from dealer cash registers!

These markets have been stirring for three or four years now and it looks like they're finally up and about! Stay tuned as this could get interesting.