Are You Saving Memorial Cents From Circulation? Even The Zinc Ones?

High grade examples are getting scarce. Luckily over the years, I have saved many tubes and tubes to be gone through later.

I have already saved quite a few thousand.

Your right, I've been saying this for years. YES, they made billions and billions but....

1) Many have been lost to attrition.
2) 99+% of circulation finds are junk.
3) Dealers and most collectors don't care to mess with them (the old billions argument). Makes finding good examples difficult.
4) Gem level coins are very difficult to find.
5) Most hoarded rolls have been improperly stored.
6) Hoping to find an MS-68 in a OBW/BU roll or mint set ends in disappointment far more often than joy.
7) Out of the billions 95+% are MS-63 or lower.

And I probably left out a few.

The current value of the piles of them I saved 45 years ago versus simple inflation makes my answer "no". A few nice ones, sure, why not.

I agree. I am saving them from the inevitable great melt (copper) or mass disintegration (zinc).

People take memorials for granted. The attitude seems to be that they made too many billions to save them so they'll have to save themselves.

They didn't.

Most of the finest examples did go into mint sets. These coins were struck under higher pressure by new dies so there's a far better chance of finding very well made coins. The trick is to find the ones that weren't mangled being put into the mint sets.

Actually, you're way too late to the party. Over the past 4-5 years the proportion of Shield cents have gradually increased in bank boxes/bags. Memorials are getting quickly lost to attrition. Mint sets are getting opened and dumped at face, rolls are usually improperly stored, and what's left is just garbage MS-63 and below.

I'm not sure why the brass memorials are more rare to find on the coastlines. Here in the midwest our bank rolls/boxes show about 27-28% of circulating is still brass. The average I would find for wheats in a $25 bank box used to be about 12, now it's more like 7-10 or so. But, that depends, hoards or buckets will come into a bank and sometimes you get a better box. I'm surprised how many people just save their pennies in jars, they don't separate them at all. I know someone who saves all his pennies, he fills a jar and into basement storage, he does slough off the wheats separate though.

Copper would have to go up more for them to be worth anything in regard to melt due to refining costs.

They do have some use. Fill a half gallon jar or tin and makes a good door stop is about the best use I have found so far. They are dirty, and they stink.

Meanwhile, the mint is still churning out allot of them, about 8 billion+/year. Yet, many retailers are beginning to round up/down already, and the take a penny jar at gas stations are not going away either, the money lost is in the labor of dealing with having to count or give them out in change, thus slowing down the next customer transaction.

It is not altogether true that saving them as an investment you will lose. They still have their face value, but where you will lose is inflation since the money could be put into something that has yield or return. Sorting them is a losing proposition at best unless you find a rare penny that has value, more than likely the time would be better spent working a regular job, then taking that money and buying coin with numismatic potential.