Quick question for a total novice:

[dam60]

Quick question for a total coin novice: I have a penny from every year from 1911-2002 at home that my grandfather gave me. Would these ever be worth anything?

 

Also, will today's pocket change ever be worth more than face value?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice you could give me.

 

Best,

 

DAM

[coinman1794]

There are many issues in the Lincoln cent series that are worth money, so it all depends on the specific dates that you have, and their condition.

 

Todays pocket change will never (not in this lifetime) be worth anything. All modern coins are being slabbed in high, uncirculated grades, and todays circulated pocket change is not going to be in demand.

[nwcs]

I agree that certain dates and mint marks are worth more than others. And grade is always a critical component. The value of your set, though, lies mostly in its completeness. Some people like buying a complete set to start from (or join into another complementary set) but some do not.

 

Today's pocket change is likely to not be worth much for a very long time. This is due to the quantity of mintage, the fact that many of these coins survive in quantity, and there is not much demand for it. Now, very high quality examples of modern coinage is in demand. It remains to be seen how long the demand will last or whether it will go up or down over time.

 

Neil

[PQSeated]

Could you possibly give us all the dates, mintmarks, and conditions of each one of the coins before 1960?

[dam60]

Guys, thanks very much for all the great comments!

 

A few questions:

1 - dates you just mean the years, right?

2 - what are mintmarks?

3 - conditions? I am not sure what really to be looking for

 

Best,

 

DAM

[PQSeated]

Yes, the date is the year on the coin.

 

The mintmarks are little letters on the coin, right near the date. You will either see a P, D, or an S on the Lincoln cents. These little letters "mintmarks" tells where that coin was made. P=Philadelphia, D=Denver, S=San Francisco, if the coin has no mint mark on it, it was made at the Philadelphia mint.

 

When figuring out the condition of the cents, you have to see whether or not it is circulated. Usually you can tell what is circulated pretty easy. If you're not sure, just pull any pocket change you have. If you look at the newer coins, (2002) you will see that they're nice and shiny, with lots of detail. If you look at some of the older coins in your pocket change, you will most likely see wore, dull coins, with not much detail. The condition gets a lot more complex, but this is a pretty basic starting point.

[Beijim]

If the coin is dated 1922 and appears to have no mintmark, this is a specimen that was actually struck at the Denver Mint. No pennies were produced that year in Philadelphia, and the overall mintage was pretty low as well. The story is that a Denver die was polished to restore its utility, and the polishing removed virtually all of the mintmark. An interesting exception to the rule that no mintmark means Philadelphia!

 

Beijim

 

[cladking]

Don't be too fast to write off the value of today's "pocket change". Certainly the typical 1965 quarter in change will need many more years of wear and attrition to acquire any sort of scarcity, but the typical 1965 quarter is in circulation and is liable to stay there for some time. We'll be well into the next century before attrition has claimed enough of these to make them scarce. By this time the coins will be worn down to a very uniform AG-/P+. These would still have little value since there will be many unc remaining from those being set aside today. There are now hundreds of thousands of people putting together sets of obsolete eagle reverse clad quarters from circulation. They will put tremendous stress on the small populations of VF and better coins which are still in circulation. In some cases there are even smaller populations of these coins in unc due to people not having saved them, mint set attrition, or lack of mint sets for a specific year. Assembling collections of these coins is complicated by the fact that so many of he coins are very poorly made. When a nice XF is finally located it is probable that it will lack major design features because of worn dies or poor strike. This is exascerbated by the tendancy of people to release poor coins from BU rolls and mint sets over the years into circulation. Nice well struck quarters of many of the early dates were statistically impossible to find BEFORE people started collecting these from change in 1999. Four years of highly selective attrition will not have done the populations of such coins any good. In addition to the rarity of many of these coins in high grade there is the fact that there are circulating varieties which do not appear in mint sets. Only fifty to sixty die pair make up the entire run of mint set coins. It is not unusual (indeed it's typical) for these dies to contain NONE of the varieties which are made. In most cases BU rolls were not saved so the only source of some very interesting varieties is circulation. There are also error coins circulating.

 

So yes, no doubt, the bulk of the coins in circulation will have no scarcity for many decades, by which time people may not even care that they are scarce. But there are surprising numbers of very rare coins in circulation. Until 1999 these coins were entirely unsearched and ignored by collectors. Since '99 many many coins have been pulled out by neophytes to assemble collections. Since "pocket change" isn't much being offered for sale or to be bought there is no price for these coins. One day in the near future you will see high prices being listed for many of these coins because the demand exists and the coins oftimes are few and far between.

[PQSeated]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the 1922 Lincoln, my bad.

[jtryka]

Just to add, Lincoln cents never have had a "P" mintmark. Those without a mintmark are minted either at Philadelphia or West Point. As far as circulated moderns go, they will eventually be worth more than face if we devalue the US dollar enough such that the copper and nickel in the coins become worth more than face value in dollar terms. This would probably mean copper trading at about $20 a pound, up from the current 70 cents a pound. Can this happen, why not? A century ago no one thought silver would ever be more than $1.20 an ounce.

[BillJones]

You don't have to go back a century. Back in 1964 the treasury department was telling people that silver would never get above the "magic" price of $1.29. That was the point at which the bullion in 90% silver coins equaled their face value. These advisories were made to discourage hoarding. Less than three years later that price was a reality, and the government and population was removing the silver coinage from circulation.

[Twowood]

Remember the days back in the 50's/60's when you'd occasionaly pick up a Buffalo nickle, Merc dime or SLQ among your change when you paid for a pack of "Old Gold" butts at 15 cents a pack ? Twowood