How Widely Did Large Cents Circulate After 1857?

I wonder about the same.
Consider that the large cent had nearly 4 times the copper content of an 1865-1982 cent. I don't know about nickel prices at the time so I can't compare the 1857-1864 cents to the large cent...
But either way, if they were circulating side by side, there was money to be made. Maybe the first "coin roll hunters" were after large cents. (I know they wouldn't be found in a roll together, but you get the idea)

My 10 year old son recently had a math problem that was set in the 1860s. The answer came out to 18.5 cents, and my son added a note that Half Cents were around in the 1860s. The teacher marked it wrong because he didn't round off the answer. So.....were they circulating in the 1860s? My guess, probably so.

I am thinking Greshams Law may have applied, driven by the Mint.
Mints would have recycled the metal from the large cents to make the smaller ones, AND make a windfall profit as well.
Besides, I am also thinking the smaller coins would have been preferred by the Public, anyway.

If this the case, then the large Cents would have disappeared form circulation within 3 years.
Later dates for the larger Coronet Cents would have seen much less circulation than the first dates smaller Flying Eagle cents.

This theory is supported by the fact that the prices of large Cents in EF 40 for dates 1840 through 1957 (Braided Hair Cents),
is only about half that of the value of Coronet Cents 1815 through 1839,
which would have been in circulation for a longer period.

Same also applies for Flying Eagle cents, which would have seen much more circulation than the earlier dated Braided Hair Cents.
This borne out in the comparatively high values for Flying Eagle cents in EF40, relative to the values for Braided Hair Cents in EF40.

That they did. That was why when the FE cents were issued they had an exchange booth on the Mint grounds exchanging the new small cents for the old large cents on a one for one basis. (While there was a profit to be made by the Mint on the exchange it wasn't that great because the nickel in the small cents raised the intrinsic value to the point that profit was less than a third of a cent per coin exchanged.)

The large cent DID continue to circulate though. As they came back into government hands of course they were redeemed and not re-issued. How large was this circulation? The only evidence I have is from the number of pieces redeemed at the Mint, and the first figures I have for that are from 1875. That year they redeemed a little over 727,000 large cents. That is a figure close to 5% of the mintage of cents for that year. In 1876 they redeemed 322,000. 1877 they redeemed 559,000. So apparently the large cent were still circulating. And this is 20 years after their production had ceased.

Thanks for all the responses that have helped shed light on this.

Now I know why there are so many really worn 1853 and 1854 Large Cents out there.

"My family history supports them showing up in circulation occasionally up until WWII. My grandfather owned a restaurant/ bar up until WWII started and my father remembers as a kid pulling out large cents from the cash drawer and giving them to my great uncle who saved them. When the uncle died in about 1967 there were still about 100 of them in a jar in his closet. About 50 of those now sit in a jar in my gun safe. No rare dates and mostly very low grade but I have an emotional attachment to them."

That was my post back in 2008, when I got them out and counted them there were 47 large cents including a few draped bust and if I remember right 1 classic head. My guess is the depression had people clearing out their dresser drawers and other stash spots for any change they could find. Kind of like 2007-2008 when the economy here took a downturn, I worked in a bank and we saw lots of 40% silver Kennedy halves and an increase in 90% silver coins start to come in as people were redeeming the coins from their piggy banks.

http://goccf.com/t/33770#263419

Note that it is to relatively easy to find Braided Hair examples in better grades. Bowers doesn't bother analyzing anything below VF-20 because of this.