Sorting through all my cents, I came across a bunch of them that had been stored in 2x2's for up to 60 years. I had no stapler for years, so closed many in the 2x2's with cellulose tape, and marked "BU" on them, to note they were 100% red.
Years of storage changed the colour of many of them, and I just started to try to have a colorfully-toned coin for each year from 1937 up. Found quite a few years, some that were natural and some by various chemicals and environments. Some have some reddish hues on the normal golden original lustre, which I think was caused by the cellulose tape, such as this one.
Some have rainbow, many green, but this one went almost the Full Red Monty, with just a slice of gold left on the obverse.
10 years later, red came back in fashion again.
Another 10 years and the red fad is waning as disco arrives, and 1974 is close to the end (see 1977 above).
By 1984, blue was the next big thing, pushing red to the edge.
I usually keep an eye out for nicely toned 1c coins at shows. Those are beautiful. You probably want to reholder them with a silicate desiccant package, to prevent further change.
"Discovery follows discovery, each both raising and answering questions, each ending a long search, and each providing the new instruments for a new search." -- J. Robert Oppenheimer
You're right Chafe. I owned a video/corner store when that movie was made, loved it. At first the title for the post was, "You call THAT a red cent ? THIS is a RED CENT !" , but it was too long for the title box and extra capital letters were dropped automatically.
For others, the reference to the cellulose tape came about because I had bought a 100% red 1949 cent but years later it has reddish tinges around the edge. Some of the clear parts of old 2x2's caused discolouration due to their chemistry, which may account for the 1954 being red all over.
I roll-searched since back in the late 60's, so 95% of what I kept were already coloured, and were mostly high grades, which is why I saved them. Many are blue, green, black, or a much different red than from probable cellulose contamination.
Here's a more recent one from my hoard. Please let me know if you guys would like to see more and I'll start a "colourful small cent" post.
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Posted 08/28/2022 09:12 am
