When Did Wheat Cents Become Collectible?

Wheat cents started getting removed from circulation about 1970. The attrition was already pretty high on them (~3%) due to natural causes and the general public but they started disappearing at a 10% rate which increased significantly by 1976. By '79 they had achieved a very low incidence around .4% in circulation and then they eased to around .2% after the massive mintages of the early '80's.

It gets complicated after this because the zinc Lincolns don't survive in circulation and wheat pennies are continually reenterring circulation. The net effect is that their incidence is fairly steady around .2% but it increases with unemployment and decreases with higher employment.

I suppose you could say 1909, 1932, or 1970 depending on your perspective.

I agree, thank you for the added perspective.

Thad, ,I didn't know you were that old ?

Yeah, and I've even seen several nice examples that didn't exist in 1909 {grin}

As a child in the late 1960's I would get a 50 cent a week allowance and would usually go to the local bank to get a roll of pennies, looking for Indian Heads. I would find one or 2 a month and built up a pretty sizable collection. Wheats were still common and usually were tossed back unless they were one I needed to fill a slot or "really old" as determined by being older than my parents...

When My older sister got a job as a bank teller in 72 or 73 she would save IHC's and most silver coins. She had to pass on many Peace and Morgan dollars and various half dollars often since she only made about $1.50 or $2 an hour. Asit was she ended up with coffee cans full of silver coins after a year or 2.

We didn't start saving Wheats because they were Wheats until the early 80's. These days Wheats in circulation are as rare as IHC's were 50 years ago.

Oh boy, can you even imagine what today's wheat crop would look like if verdicare was available in the early part of the 20th century

I didn't want to start a separate thread for this so I thought maybe I could slip it into this conversation. What is meant by the term: "Reconstituted Lincoln Steel Cent." I'm pretty sure it means it's been "fixed" or re-plated, meant to look new and uncirculated, but that probably also means it's been ruined. Jack