Survey Of 1,300 Pennies From Circulation

How many pennies get lost each year? I decided to estimate that 5% disappear each year - hoarded in jars, lost down sofas, withdrawn by banks because they're worn/damaged, taken abroad by foreign tourists, saved by collectors, dropped on the ground, etc. Using Excel again, I worked out the 'survival numbers' based on 5% of coins vanishing each year. This would mean that there are now about 95 million 1971 pennies left in circulation out of a total mintage of 1.5 billion, and about 160 million 2017 pennies out of a total mintage of 240 million. The results were interesting, and, in some cases, uncannily accurate!

The 5% is obviously not quite correct, but I was astonished how accurate it was: discrepancies can mostly be attributed to the small size of the survey! It would be interesting to repeat it with 10,000 coins! The small number of 2020 pennies found may reflect the fact that not all have yet been released into circulation, and the somewhat surprising overabundance of 1971's may reflect the fact that this coin is notoriously the commonest UK coin ever produced and is still readily available in MS from dealers, so is unlikely to be hoarded by collectors.

I'm surprised that the solid bronze (pre-1992) pennies are still that abundant in change; there obviously isn't any systematic effort by the British government to withdraw and scrap them.

Annual losses for post-1992 coins are also probably higher than for brone coins, due to them being more prone to environmental destruction - they simply rust away if left in the rain, standing water, or damp soil.

Good point, Sap - I hadn't thought of that. You're right that the post-1992 coins decay more quickly - I've picked up examples by the roadside that are little more than corroded lumps of metal, but sometimes I've been metal-detecting and dug up a 1970s penny that's probably been buried for 20+ years, given it a quick wipe and spent it in a shop on my way home.