Pennies. What ones are worth keeping?

I'm a novice penny collector and have gone through a lot of pennies lately. I have started setting aside all pennies before 1982 to begin with. I also have taken out the special Lincoln coins (as well as the Shield pennies because I enjoy them).

Is this a good start? Should I focus on wheat pennies? I went through a jar of pennies last night and got a whole cup of coins from the 70s and another from 80-82 alone so should I not bother to get these anymore?

Any help is much appreciated.

 

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I'm not much of a cent collector but I do make it a habit of picking the pre-82 coins out of my pocket change and throwing them into and old wine jug.

 

well if you want copper bullion sure collect anything before 82 is good, but its very extremely rare to find anything worth while in a box of cents..

 

Two books are necessary to get you started on the right track. "A Guide Book of Lincoln Cents" by Q. David Bowers, and A Guide Book of United States Coins" (called The Red Book), by RSYeoman. Both books are available just about anywhere and are a small price to pay for the knowledge you will gain.

 

I don't even bother with copper, I take the best ones out, even if they are zinc. I also look for CAMs and WAMs

 

I do have a small stash of copper pennies. I got a bunch of rolls from a credit union someone brought in that were all copper, nothing newer than 1979. There currently is a law though against melting copper pennies which makes them not worth over one cent despite each one has 2.4 cents in copper. Copper is an industrial metal and needs to be made into something else to be worth anything. I always check the 1960 pennies for a small date and save all wheats but mostly look for early wheats. I also look for things for my set books that were my grandfather's.

 

Mostly it's a matterof trying to get the nicest specimen of every coin you consider part of the collection. I'd suggest you add major and some (if not all) minor varieties. Start by getting an album to hold the coins. With cents they can be thumb printed by pushing them in a folder so albums are advisable. Once you have a reference collection you'll have something to which to compare your new circulation finds. Don't just look for unworn or lightly worn coins but look for nice strikes as well. You want as much detail as possible. Look for zinc issues with nice clean surfaces and no breaks in the plating. Many will be rough or "bubbled".

There are numerous reference books and on-line resources to help. Never worry about asking questions. It takes time to learn and you can't get it all in one post or even a thread but a few come close.

 

Thanks! I think that is what I am going to do. I think I want to buy the 2x2 cardboard holders rather than the albums so they can look more organized. Once I get them, I think that I will weed out the extra coins.

Do you think it's worth it to keep all pre 82 pennies or simply the nice/unique ones?

 

I'm much better than that. All my pennies for the last 30 years are in 6 vases and counting.

 

Several ways of being a "penny" collector (most on this board prefer the term cent). Saving the pre-1982 cents is a hoarding way for copper, but gets old quick. Searching for certain dates gives you something to do and a sense of accomplishment, but the older dates are essentially impossible to find in circulation. Errors can be fun if you know what you are looking for. Just get started and keep reading the posts in the forum and we will addict you.

 

One thing about throwing all the copper in the wine jug (jugs)......I've been doing it for quite some time now and if the urge to really get serious about cents ever overcomes me, I've got a lot of raw material to search through.

 

well, I've got a pretty big hoard saved up... in a short amount of time. I'll have to post pictures soon. It's a few hundred pounds...

 

I think The Cherry Pickers Guide to Coins will be a good book to have for checking varieties. You will also notice that looking through hundreds of cents at one shot will make you go nearly blind.

 

VERY TRUE. as a general rule when coin roll hunting, I won't search more than 1 box at a time with at least a half hour break in between. I love my eyes

 

Plus you have an incentive to make more jugs empty so you can fill them with more coins. Who says coin collecting isn't fun ?

 

11 boxes full of 1959-1981's, and about $25 more of them in the plastic bucket to the left. about two thirds of a box of 82' coppers. about $4 in canadian copper in the small dish, over half a box of wheats in the red rolls, and about $50 of uncirculated copper memorials. so yeah... Anyone got more than me?

 

Uncle! You win.........

 

Hello

Doesn't your home have a maximum safety of weight that you can put on it?

 

I don't stack them more than 2 boxes high. Also, they're kept on ground floor with a very thick and sturdy concrete floor below. As of now, the hoard weighs around 250 pounds, spread out over a few square feet. If you think about a 150 pound person standing up, they have 150 pounds making contact with a square foot area at the most (their feet). if you only stack the boxes 2 high, it's ~60 pounds per square foot.

 

These are the coins I look for when going through bank boxes.
1983P - DDR Check ONE CENT and E PLURIBUS UNUM
1984P - DDO Extra ear
1988P - Reverse of 1989
1992P&D - Close AM
1994P - DDR Many varieties
1995P - DDO
1996P - Wide AM
1998P - Wide AM
1999P - Wide AM
2000P - Wide AM

I also check out all 1960 P & D and 1972P DDO. I save all the copper, including all pre-1996 Canadian, and check for any obvious errors such as clips or cuds. I'll never get rich checking penny boxes, but it is fun.