I Got A Solid Box Of 2013-S: Now What?

BStrauss3:

There are approximately 200 billion circulating one cent coins in the United States. While I agree with your logic, the population of cent roll hunters is probably such a miniscule percentage of the population to make that drastic of a dent in the circulating wheat population in such a short space of time.

I get one box a week. That's only 120,000 searched cents in total a year. I doubt my "copper footprint" is that large compared to the wheat cents just waiting to be found. If roll hunting was going to self destruct so quickly, it probably would have done so 20 years ago before this forum was even imagined.

However, it WILL self destruct eventually. Especially due to the creation of the Internet. I'd say more new collectors took up CRH in the last year than in the last decade because of finding out about it online.

That's the interesting thing: The actual find rates of wheats are far higher than estimated surviving population. I get anywhere from 10-25 wheats a box. That's out of 2500, but the estimate is 1 in 4000.

I believe your math is correct, so how can the relatively high wheat population be explained? It can't be Coinstar alone, there is too much of a difference between your estimate and roll hunting data in the field.

If I continue to get these find rates, and the other cent roll hunters also experience, that must justify a much higher circulating population than your estimate implies. Again, I trust your figures, so what is going on?

I also believe there is a massive potential circulating wheat population as opposed to actively circulating, I.e. change that has sat in jars for years or decades. This supports your Coinstar theory.

Due to the decreasing prevalence of the cent in circulation, this may contribute to high survival rates. Any other explanations?

Hmmmmm...I have a lot of duplicates!

Actually I was thinking of keeping my duplicate wheats until the roll price is significant. Definitely not doing anything right away, but we'll see.

OK, I know what you mean:

So my average box finds are anywhere from 10-25 wheats. So let's say 10 out of 2000 coins (as opposed to 15 out 2500 for the sake of easier math) are wheat cents.

That means 0.5% of circulating cents are wheat cents. Adjust this to the 200 billion figure, and that means that 1 billion wheat cents have survived.

If there were about 26 billion made in total, 3.85% of the total mintage has survived.

so what to look for when you get brand new box of 2013 pennies ?

Got a box today, definitely NOT a new 2013 one. Mixed circulated, had a 1911!