RichPres

Thanks again for all of the great information! Is OP "original poster"? I was hoping it was that instead of old person--ha ha. Although old person would also be fitting. I was with my parents when we were collecting these coins through the 60's. It was a really nice family activity. They continued into the 70's and 80's after I was no longer in the house. I am inventorying the coins (not all just pennies) now after having packed them around undisturbed for may years and many household moves. I'm enjoying going through them and seeing notes and labels my parents had included. The spreadsheet continues to grow and is around 18,000 coins. Sounds like a lot of work but most are easy to inventory because they are in rolls (some in plastic tubes air sealed and obviously red and no doubt in some uncirculated state). The tubes must not be PVC because I see no green around the edges after 60+ years. My goal with the pennies is to complete the project, keep a nice collection at home and put together a collection for each of my four grandkids--selling some of the coins off to purchase needed coins to fill in the holes. Then I might start working on nickels, dimes, and quarters. I hope to post photos of some of the more interesting coins here. Thanks again!

Thanks so much to everyone--just the information I was looking for.

Three questions. I have thousands of Lincoln pennies from our family collection--most of which are from the 40's-80's. Most of them haven't even been looked at or touched in over 50 years. I have rolls of red uncirculated pennies mostly from the 60's when most were collected. It appears they have significant value (according to NGC guides), but would probably cost more to grade than their worth. My questions are: --What is the best way to sell some of these coins that are maybe worth $5, $10 or more according to the guides? --Most of my coins are not in AU-U condition. According to the guide (with exceptions) they are probably worth 5 cents which is probably a dealer retail price. Should I regard these as "spenders" or is there a market for such coins where I could sell them to a dealer at more than a penny? --Lastly, I understand it is now illegal to melt copper pennies. I understand right now the copper value is slightly above 2 cents/copper penny. Is it likely that the copper coins would be worth keeping in anticipation of the law changing so that I could realize the copper melt value if the law changes? Thank you!