When Did Wheat Pennies Fade Out Of Circulation?

I visited America in 1983. Wheat cents certainly were not commonly found in change by then. I think I found one or two in change for the whole three weeks I was there.

David. It will take many many more years before they actually fade out of circulation. heck, people still occasionally find indian heads in circulation. as time passes though, it will get progressively harder to find them. David's 0.40% finding rate will most certainly decrease in 10 years.

I was born in 1953, and collected coins as a kid (in the 60's) I remember Wheat cents being about 5-10% of what I came across as a teenager (I'll say 1968). A great many things happened in 1968 - it's a time I remember!

An old man ran a laundromat near where I lived. He caught me emptying his coin changers (I would put in one dollar bills), and gradually deplete his coin reserves. He used to let me go through his coin change machines, occasionally (just open them up and let me swap out whatever coins I wanted). Guess he figured it was easier than having me under foot draining his machines. I could find Buffalo nickels (I'll say maybe one in 200), and silver dimes and quarters were still circulating - but all ready down to about 1-2 %. I find wheats in San Diego today, at the rate of approximately .4% (one in 250)



Best,

LastGold

This is a really interesting question, and it got me thinking. I checked my notes from late 2007 when I sorted 5000 cents for the cent project. At the time I found 33 wheat cents which comes to 1 every 151 total or 0.66%. This is somewhat higher than others are reporting now and that was just 3 1/2 years ago.

Then I started thinking about going back further. Back in 1974 when they were experimenting with aluminum cents, I started saving every cent that I got in change (I still do). Periodically I would sort and roll them. I must have stopped counting in 1992 because that is the last year I had listed on my sheet. I had rolls of every date starting with 1959, but I did not have enough for even 1 roll of any Wheat cent. I did not count the cents which were less than 1 roll and I am too tired to count them now, but I did keep the wheat cents separate. I do know that I accumulated 42 rolls of 1975(p) cents alone (my largest single date total). When I get better numbers, I will post them.

But my observation of cents saved between 1974 and 1992 indicates that wheat cents were already a very small percentage by then.

They did not make literally billions of wheat cents every year.. For many people it's still just a near worthless 3 cent face value (really?, nobody really knows that) copper planchet. LMC's will stick around a long time yet, but not until inflation, high energy costs, and the green revolution sends copper prices skyrocketing. Then, the copper penny will have it's day, just like silver coinage has. Things could change. We could go mining busters and come up with new mining methods which completely destroy the land, yet yield unbelievable amounts of metals, on the other hand, we are only human and take all the easy stuff first, still, with technology, it can get easier to get to later. We only just found a 4 mile wild circle in Montana that will allow us to cut China out of playing the monopoly card on rare earth metals.

If it were not for copper hoarding, the rate might actually have increased since before 2008. The rescession and economic hardships people have been placed in have encouraged them to spend/deposit into the bank the various stashes of coins they have been holding onto. I definately think that the Buffalo nickel find rate has increased since 2007 for the same reasons

I don't roll search, so I'm strictly talking about receiving them in change. Back in the 70s, you'd still get quite a lot. 80s, not a lot anymore, but still a few. These days I can go a year without seeing a single one.

If you look at the 250,000 nickel sort thread you'll realize there are still plenty of cents out there just floating around. Heck, I read about a guy who found a $1 gold dollar in a dime roll in the past 10 years! Stuff is still out there but generally decreasing. I did a thread at another coin forum on the amount of LMC copper culls........about 9 billion so far have been taken out of circulation for bullion purposes!

Once the melt ban is lifted, as others have said we will see pre-82 pennies disapear forever. I've heard from more than a few guys who have several tons of pennies sitting in their garage waiting for the melt ban to be lifted.