Red Copper Lincol Memorial Values?

you could get a set from ebay from 1959 to 2010 for about $22.

he said "almost a complete", so it definately depends if he has those or not... and the 70 s small dates are up to like $40 bucks or more now for the BU red ones.

Hang in there though. In several more years those too will be up there in value. All Lincoln Cents are on the move value wise.

In all honestly its gonna take A LONG TIME . All the coins from 1960 on were minted in billions
except the S dates were in the 1/3 rd billion range

Even the Wheat cent books 40-58 are not worth a fortune yet each coins In AU can be bought for a buck or less

Most of the wheat cents were made pretty well. They were made so well that finding nice choice coins is not a challenge so many collectors are not especially concerned with quality. Why worry about quality if they're all fairly nice?

All the later wheat cents were saved in very large quantities. Virtually the entire mintage of the '31-S, for example, was saved. Tens of millions of '56 to '64 coins were saved.

But savings became much spottier after 1965. Some quarters weren't saved at all and one cent coins could in some instances be heavily undersaved. There are probably half as many 1971 BU rolls as 1955-S for instance. But it's hardly rarity that is going to make any memorials potentially valuable, it's quality. While most of the '55-S cents are choice or gemmy it's quite difficult to find a nice attractive '71 cent. Gem '55-S's probably outnumber gem '71's by twenty to one and it would be far worse if there weren't mint sets containing the '71.

Putting together a choice set of memorials isn't hard to do but the $22 sets on ebay won't even provide a good start. The few choice coins in such a set will be dates that are common in choice condition. But putting together a gem set is a real challenge. No, it won't cost much even if you buy certified coins because there isn't a lot of demand but many memorials are hard to find in gem.

A superb gem set is going to require both expense and hard work no matter how you do it.

It just isn't going to require very much demand to push the prices of a lot of these sharply higher. Unfortunately it's unlikely that choice coins can get very much of a premium because these coins would come out of the woodwork if prices escalated. But a lot of the choice and superb gems simply aren't out there like they are for the wheaties and higher prices could not get them out of storage.

There's a strong demand for something like a '49-S in MS-66 so it has a real premium. This premium will likely grow over the years as demand increases. But there's very little demand for a '74-D small date in MS-66 and there's a tiny fraction as many of these as the '49-S. When demand materializes it will necessarily result in sharply higher prices.

I wonder where prices will go when/if the melt ban is lifted on copper cents.

A ryedale doesn't know the difference between an MS coin or a cull...


Lots of hoarders out there...

I see your point clad,

But from 59-82 so many mint sets were issued some years in the millon range

FMV is like 4-5$ a set any given year, set of 68-74-s marks is cheap along with the 7 82 varities as well.

Like I said A LONG TIME. When the price guides start showing a huge increase for 59-82 cents in red BU then thats when they will be worth something .

Prob in another 20 years , it's long time I think anyways ,but some of you guys might think 20 years is nothing. I guess time will tell for the 59-82 coppers. Now MS65+ thats diff story but BU is usually reffered to MS61-63