When Were Currently Uncommon Coins Commonly Circulated?

After finding my 3rd Buffalo nickel yesterday I started wondering when did the buffalo nickel cease to circulate regularly? And for that matter, when did other old design coins, such as the wheat cent, stop showing up in our day to day change.

Before anyone tries to give me the "These coins still circulate BS", let me clarify. When I say circulate regularly I mean regularly enough that you wouldn't have look twice when you saw one in circulation; kinda like the 09 Lincoln pennies, or the 04-05 nickels.

 

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My guess. A few years after the last Buffalo and Wheat coins were minted.
Last Wheat was minted in 1958. So I would imagine like the mid 70's they became more uncommon.

 

+1 but I was born in the 80s so I am just guessing...

 

Well, the last Buffalo was minted in 1938.

In the mid-1960's they were still common in change.
I used to go to a neighborhood 'candy store' and the owner let me look thru his change.

Buffalos & War nickels were common place, you just took dates you needed, and left the rest.

 

Did people know that war nickels were silver back in the day? Cause I feel like most people don't anymore.

 

More than likely some people were aware of it back in the day... based on studies on my personal findings, War Nickels have been pulled from circulation at approximately a 6 1/2 times higher rate as other coins from that period (1938-1951)...

 

When I was a kid in the mid 70's I searched rolls of Lincoln's for Wheaties and would usually find between 5 and 10 per roll.

 

yes, we knew it, but there were so many, and silver was still being minted, so no real reason to save them

 

I remember going through penny rolls a long time ago back in the 70s to find wheat cents. Probably something like 20 years or so after they were last circulated.

 

I'm only 26 so I can't give much input here, but as a kid in the 90s I remember finding wheat cents with decent regularity. Now finding one in change is quite difficult.
I don't keep track but I'd say now I might find one in change per month if I'm lucky, 15 years ago they seemed 5x more common than they are today

 

Slightly off topic, but for the past month or two, I have been seeing a LOT of cents from the 70s and 80s in XF-AU condition in the Boston area. Many cents from the late 60s in fine condition, as well, plus a nice 1940-S in AU.

 

when I was in grade school back in the early 70's .... I started my penny and nickel collection and never really saw any wheats or buffalo nickels

most everything was from the 60's since they pounded out billions of coins which you still see today...never really saw any coins 50 years old like from the 1920's like you do today which is the 1960's but when designs change.. they are considered old and quickly go away

 

From what I've read in the past, Buffalo nickels were fairly common throughout the 50's and into the early 60's but were often found to be dateless. Wheats were pretty commonly encountered into the early 70's but had thinned out considerably by 1980.

Snowman brings up a good point that billions of coins were minted in the 60's (especially in 1964). This would have contributed to earlier coins with considerably lower mintages by comparison from being found with regularity like they would have been as little as just a few years before.

 

A good comparison might be the shield cent. Memorials are still around in quantity but copper ones do seem to be thinning out.

 

I remember my father showing me the different color of the dimes in our til. He told me we should pick out the dull looking ones as they were silver and people were saving them.

This would have been 1965.

My honey and I would make a date for a cold Saturday afternoon to sit around the warm kitchen stove and search through bags of cents for the wheats and we found around 5-10 per roll.

This was in 1972-1973.

Buffs and war nickels were a rare find for me.

 

XF/AU cents from the 70s and 80s are the norm in most areas... What's unusual is when you start seeing BU coins from the 1970s and before. And you will even run into the occasional BU wheat if you go through enough coins or happen to hit a collection dump.

 

I have gotten customer wrapped rolls of coins that were rolled in 1964-5 based on those dates being the latest in the rolls and in red uncirculated condition - about 1/3 of the coins were wheats - factor that beginning in the early 1960s cents started really picking up in numbers minted.

 

Buffalo nickels were fairly common in the early 1960s. At the time I had a paper route and started collecting cents, nickels and dimes in Whitman albums. Most of the better date Buffaloes did not find their way into the albums until my kids were on their own (as most fathers know, kids are expensive!). Wheat ear cents were also common for quite some time after their minting stopped.

 

I began collecting coins around December, 1956, in Los Angeles. I never saw an Indian cent or any Barber coinage. Buffalo nickels circulated but most of them had no dates. I saved the ones that did but they were rarely above very good. After 1963 or 1964 they were gone. My best find was a 1926-s nickel in fine.

Wheat cents were too common to save but I did find a 1931-s cent in EF when I was twelve. I let out a yell when the teller handed it to me and he asked if he had short changed me. I had to buy the early s mint ones from teens.

Mercury dimes were common until the very early sixties and could be found in fine to very fine condition. I did get a 1930-s in AU.

Standing liberty quarters were hard to find with dates, maybe one in four had a readable date.

Walking Liberty half dollars were common but well worn except for those in the 40's. I found a 1921-s at the beach one day. Half dollars were very common in circulation in those days.

Common date silver dollars were available only at banks and rarely circulated. I located an AU 1893 when it was worth a premium of maybe fifty cents and I'm glad that I saved it. I could have gone to a movie and bought candy for that dollar! I found two 1892-s and two 1903-s all in VF. The 1878's, the first year, were a dime a dozen. Of course, no one knew anything about VAM's then.

 

You had some neat finds back in the day, Marc! Love hearing about those stories!