1960 Small Date LMCs - Numbers?

I've never seen numbers for large and small date seperated. but you can find a 60 SD in circulation...it is pretty rare to do so but there have been a couple posted on here this year as roll finds.I haven't seen one in the last 180 thousand pennies I searched.

Oh, and something else that should be mentioned is that the P mint small date was known to be scarce shortly after the year began and a number of people hoarded them by the bag and roll. Finding them in circulation has always been a real chore, and as they come close to being 50 years old, it becomes more difficult each year. I find them on rare occasion, but they are much more common than 1970S small date cents in change.

Over all the years I have been looking through Lincoln cents - about 30 in all - I have been through over 2 million cents and have found about a roll worth of 1960P small date in all that time. I have found a grand total of - ONE - 1970S small date cent in circulated bag/roll searches.

Basically if you don't have a lot of patience - it's worth the $2 or so you would pay for an AU 1960P small date and the $20 or so you would pay for a 1970S small date in AU. It could possibly take you a LOT of coins to find them for face value, and if you value your time at all, you'll pay for a thousand of them in time spent before you find one.

Chuck - thank you for all the fantastic information. You are welcome to hog as many threads as you want.

So using the 40:1 ratio, that would make about 14.7 million small date 1960 P cents. Any idea how that number compares to the 1970 S SD? Also, with all you listed above (low mintage, hoarding, etc.) is the 1960 SD an undervalued coin?

Wish you wouldn't have said that. Now Whitman will find out and add that to the next Album for those coins.
And as to the different 60's, 70's, etc. I agree it is really easier to just buy them rather than burning out my eyes on millions of coins.

The 1960P small date is not readily available in circulation because it was hoarded and is now 50 years old. Together that makes it a tough monkey in change. They are out there, but are not common at all. I'd say 1 in 50 $25 boxes. Better off just buying one...just saying - my time is worth more than that for $2.

The coins are not undervalued. Like the 1950D nickel, these were saved by the hundreds of thousands in BU back when they were first known to be scarce - yet another reason why they are tough to find in change...less than half of them ever made it there.

The 1970S small date is a different animal entirely. because they are much tougher to detect from the large date, and because far fewer were made in the first place, your chances of finding one in circulation are 'possible' yet not 'probable' unless you live in California and have access to a lot of older saved change. Most 'S' mint cents generally didn't make it much farther East than Colorado, although I have known S-mint bags to pop out of banks in Pennsylvania.

Anyhow, their approximate numbers are about 200:1 large to small as made, and now their ratio in change would be in the thousands to one....meaning you'd find more than $10 face in 1970S large dates before having much of a chance at finding a small date. At $20 or so for a low end mint state example or a nice AU example - I'd rather just spend the money and get it over with.

For around $25 you can have both in acceptable condition and save yourself from finding lesser examples going through thousands of rolls trying.

QUOTE:

"The 1970S small date is a different animal entirely. because they are much tougher to detect from the large date, and because far fewer were made in the first place, your chances of finding one in circulation are 'possible' yet not 'probable' unless you live in California and have access to a lot of older saved change. Most 'S' mint cents generally didn't make it much farther East than Colorado, although I have known S-mint bags to pop out of banks in Pennsylvania".


Chuck:

I live in Northern NJ ( Approx less than 50 miles from Philly traveling straight northwest) and I just found a 70S small date a week ago in a bank wrapped roll of cents.









Only last year did I finally find a 1960 small date after 50 years of collecting, on and off, but daily over the past 2/3 years.

There were about 200,000 of these in the '70 mint sets at one time but many of these have been lost to fire or flood or the half dollar cut out and the small date spent. Over the years '70 mint sets with the small date cent have proven more likely to be destroyed because people want this coin. Now days there probably aren't many more than about 40,000 left in the mint sets and many of these are corroded or tarnished.

Depends on how many Albums a person is working on. I presently am trying to finish set #10 to completion and using those stupid Whitman Albums, that always means I have to acquire the 55, 72, 95 double dies, all the 60's, all the 70's, all the 82's, that dumb 22 plain, 20 different 2009's, etc. Lucky that Whitman hasn't heard yet of the different 74S's.
I've gotten to old, eyes getting weak, gas prices to go back and forth to banks just to MAYBE find a coin. NO, at my age it's the coin shows and there it is just laying on a table waiting for me.