Goodbye To The Penny

It's the perfect outcome for me. Just stopping the manufacture, but leaving them in circulation as legal tender indefinitely means at lot more copper mining. Soon there will be no new boxes to interfere with the mining operation! Just mixed boxes with returned older copper cents.

Personally, I think we will still get them in change for years to come. Probably in groups of 5 when rounding becomes common.

To illustrate how new most world currencies are, let me point out that there are only three countries in the world where it's even theoretically possible to find silver coins in circulation i.e. the currency has not been reformed or replaced since the end of WWII: America, Canada and Switzerland. I will also throw in some discussion of Great Britain in there as a special case.

America: all US notes dating back to the civil war are still legal tender. All US coins, ever made since 1792, are still legal tender (though for some coins this was applied retrospectively in 1965).

Canada: all Canadian coins ever made since the original Confederation in 1859 are legal tender. All Canadian banknotes from the Bank of Canada (1934) and certain pre-1934 nationalized banks remain legal tender.

Switzerland: Although the coinage designs for Swiss coins has remained essentially the same since the 1850s, certain coinage issues - specifically, the pure-nickel coins issued prior to WWII - are technically no longer legal tender, though as the designs are identical enforcement of this is impossible outside of the banking system. Swiss banks also actively withdraw any silver coins deposited with them. Swiss banknotes, on the other hand, are routinely withdrawn and demonetized, so any banknotes older than 1976 are now worthless except as collectors items.

Great Britain: One could well argue that the British pound is the world's oldest currency, as it has remained in continuous use since the dark ages - some time around AD 800 - without technically being replaced, although there was a major reform to the currency in 1971 when the pound was decimalized and all the old pre-decimal shilling-and-pence coinage withdrawn. So although you won't find any coins older than 1971 in your change, you might technically find older banknotes. The Bank of England has never withdrawn or demonetized any of its notes since its founding in 1694, so technically, "bank of England pounds" is the world's oldest currency still in use. Alongside them, British gold sovereigns are perhaps the longest-serving formerly-circulating coin, as they have been issued to the same specifications and much the same design since 1817 - though of course they now sell for considerably more than 1 pound.

Caveat: Mexico, whose new currency in the 1990s had introduced several (partially-)silver coins that technically remain in circulation.

I think there's a few other similar awkward edge cases; Mexico is a meaningful one because the 10 and 20 nuevos pesos coins are of similar enough design to the current types to actually plausibly show up in change.

1M. Wow. I don't think I will go that far.

@cladking: Not being cheeky, but the post you quoted didn't mention NZ, though your analysis of the coin market here in NZ is spot on. There is not much in the way of a comparison in terms of longevity of "legal tender" coins because NZ has revised its coinage several times since introducing its own in the 30s.

My comments from another thread about the US one cent:
New Zealand is an interesting example as even demonetised coins can be redeemed through the Reserve Bank:
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/money-and-...-or-old-cash

And that includes before the move to dollars and cents in 1967, so we're talking pounds, shillings and pence. And that can possibly even include pre-NZ coinage, which prior to the early 1930s meant British coins. Apparently that can be more of a battle, and would be foolish in numismatic terms much of the time, or in terms of PMs as quite a few were sterling silver up through 1920 or so.

As it is, older coins are available on the local online auction site, as well as at local auction houses. Accumulations of older coins will come up, and go for anything to scrap up to something approaching numismatic value, or even exceeding it if people don't know what they're doing. Kind of the same story everywhere on that last point. One and Two Cent coins in particular seem to be in good supply, as are pre-decimal coins, so the pre-1967 stuff.

Likewise, when they introduced the one and two dollar coin in the early 90s they phased out the one and two dollar notes. I hope the US comes to its senses and elimiates the dollar note sooner or later. In any case, those old notes can similarly be traded in for modern money. Those notes remain collectable and come up at auction often as well. Anyone under the age of 40 would probably give you a funny look if you tried to present one. In saying that, I get funny looks in the US when I try and spend a Kennedy half.

oops. I had two windows open and brought up the wrong one.

My favorite moderns are the lightly saved and well made ones from countries like Switzerland, NZ, and Japan. I also like some less well made ones like India.

For the main part the supply dwarfs the demand but supply can be far less than many believe. While 5,000 nice choice 1971 NZ 20c coins is far more than the market can bear it's really just a drop in the bucket with world population at eight billion.

They may never be widely collected but if they are it will belike nice choice '68 US pennies; they are far scarcer than most people imagine.

Yes, Zincolns are very hard to find in unspotted, pristine condition. That d@mn zinc under that thin copper layer is highly reactive to external elements, especially when the copper is pierced.

The only Zincolns I would ever MAYBE collect would be the proofs, due to the double layer copper plating. Very BIG maybe.

For me the Lincoln Cent is 1909-1942 and 1944-1982.