Why Aren't People Hoarding Memorial Cents By Now?

I keep pre 82's & 82's weighing 3.1g when CRHing. Wheats go into tubes & LMC's go into this bucket (I think it's time to get a new bucket).

The wheat cents have far lower attrition and are no longer degrading at a significant rate. In 1909 a cent was a great deal of money since it required only three or four to make a decent meal. In 1959 it was still money though it didn't go as far. By 1974 a penny was pretty much a waste of space and a mere place holder for making "proper" change. By 1982 when the zincolns were introduced even a few grams of zinc were worth one cent so the denomination simply and literally became expendable rather than spendable. Today the penny is symptomatic of broken government, broken promises, and a status quo that is inviolable.

This all adds up to a staggering attrition rate on the memorial cents and especially those made since 1982. Not only does the zinc virtually evaporate in circulation but more and more people simply discard the coins or use plastic so as to not deal with them and the mess. Look at a handful of zincolns and you'll see coins that look like they have the plague. Indeed, more and more people toss all their coins except quarters. Many of the people most prone to disposing of pennies use credit cards almost exclusively. Ironically coins are far less prone to carry disease than paper currency but now the daily newspaper costs $1.50 and few people will pay that much in coin.

Memorial cents are disappearing at such high rates that the total number of survivors could be lower than the total number of surviving wheat cents if the madness continues another ten or twelve years. Additionally there are some people pulling copper pennies from circulation in the hope of cashing them in or using them as fodder for making bronze sculpters. If you need a washers it can be easier to drill a hole through a roll than to make a trip to the hardware store and pay a lot more. Figure $3 for the trip and 3c each for the washers.

Of course most of the ones being removed will still be around until the melting ban is lifted. Meanwhile we still don't have an alternative for the nickel which is required for commerce. One congressman actually proposed revaluating pennies as nickels in the event the nickel is discontinued due to cost. Nickel prices have come down since they changed the composition of "stainless" steel but they could go up again quickly in the current economic enviroment.

Sometimes the future isn't all that hard to predict but in this case there are just too many dislocations and imponderables. Most factors are under the control of government and the reaction of the public to any specific change is highly dependent on the context of that change. In the mean time it seems hard to go wrong stashing some scarce coins at absurdly low prices. In years of lookiung I've seen a single (one) nice fully Gem 1984-P with nice surfaces. How can this coin not attract at least a little interest someday? If you can stash away a nice Gem roll of '88-D's for a dollar or two this seems a safe bet. Some of the older coins like the '79-D is pretty special in Gem because most have scratches all over them, or at least one gouge. Some dates are tough well made and some are tough well preserved. A billion wheat pennies of some 120 date/ mint mark combinations have been collected or set aside. Far far fewer memorial coins of nearly as many date/ mm combinations have been saved by collectors. Instead most of these coins are just mouldering in peoples' change jars because they aren't worth the trouble of hauling to the bank.

Cladking - very interesting post. There are so many variables it's hard to say what will happen!

I wouldn't horde memorial cents even if I were a much younger man. People have collapsed houses stuffing them full of one cent coins and the memorials will be common for at least a century if not much longer.

But varieties and Gems are not so common as people believe but few people know it because few collect them.

Everyday they make a few million more pennies because everyday a few million pennies get thrown away or otherwise destroyed. It adds up in the long run and it's already been half a century.

Doing quick math with the mintage figures -

- 25.8B LWCs
- 363.6B LMCs
- 1.34B 2009 Lincolns
- 22.4B LSCs through 2013

As noted, LWC Obsolescence has been firmly in place for several decades. LMC production numbers are massive. LSCs even more so. I couldn't find the 2014 production numbers quickly, but it's clear that the production for the past 5 years exceeds all the LWC production for 50 years.

Marc!

cladking, that was an excellent post.

The best line...