Okay, so, hello CoinTalk after about eight years. I got back into CRH last year, figuring I'd hit some good collection dumps, and thus far I haven't (though I did have a couple of rolls that obviously hadn't been touched since the 70's and 80's). My dad said that when he did it as a kid (50's-60's), he was able to establish relationships with bank tellers who'd call him if they thought someone just brought in a collection. Every time I ask bank tellers about that these days, they say that they're not allowed to call people. Sometimes I walk into a bank asking for pennies and come out with only a roll or two. ("COIN SHORTAGE", they say.) Sometimes I can get $40+. Two questions here: 1) Why in the world is there still a coin shortage when the Mint put out almost the same number of coins last year as they did in previous years? 2) Are there any places where any of y'all have had constant good luck finding coin supply? The banks have said they won't call me when they have good supply either, so it's like I have to visit and hope. What rolls provide the best return on investment? I like pennies because any wheatie is 5x face value minimum and I've always been into pennies. Nickels used to be okay but these days they're a bore-fest, or so it seems. I haven't done much with dimes and quarters, though I'd bet I could find the occasional silver dime. Halves seem like fun, though I only got into those by accident last week when a teller said that they had 43 rolls of them that they'd been sitting on for months. (I took 15 rolls, all I could afford at the moment, and went back the next morning for the rest. The very same teller said that someone else had come in earlier that morning and bought them all - and she actually thought I had tipped the guy off!) I found some circulated proofs and a couple of 1987 NIFCs, so that was cool, though most of what I saw were common 1970's dates. Maybe there's something to be said about what's the easiest coinage to buy these days. One would think halves would be - after all, who actually spends halves anymore? Another thing I wonder - will Memorial cents ever be valuable en masse? I have to imagine that wheaties used to be all over the place, and when they were, nobody thought much about them. Then Memorials came out, and I doubt that everyone suddenly hoarded wheaties because of it. Yet, by the time I started collecting in the early 1980's, wheaties were very rare in circulation and coin rolls. So, with the most recent year for Memorials being 13 years ago, do any of y'all think that within a couple of decades, Memorials will become rare in circulation like wheaties did, and see value appreciation as such?
No. Worn wheat cents still have some character. Worn memorials have zip for character. But, the shield cent is ugly and it may produce some hoarding of memorials like the memorial did for the wheat cents in 1959.
So people did actually hoard wheaties in 1959 when the Memorial came out, like right away? (I thought that only happened when clad coinage replaced silver...)
…also, the first year memorial 1959 and next year 1960 for large and small dates. “Hoarding” has a broad connotation. Collectors and dealers saved a lot of these rolls, but the general public not so much…imo…Spark
Welcome back to CoinTalk! I think this is because people aren't turning in coins, in part because of COVID lockdowns and the resulting generally slower flow of money. Think about it: how often do you see people spending change, as opposed to handing over a large bill and receiving change? The fact is, after decades of inflation, anything less than a dollar is a trivial amount of money, not worth spending extra time and attention to count. Unless, of course, you have the coin-collecting disorder. So, people take change home and put it in a pile. Or a jar. Or a bucket. Eventually, they realize they've accumulated an amount that isn't trivial, and they take it to the bank or to a CoinStar. But banks are taking out their automated coin machines (they're a maintenance headache), and CoinStar currently skims something like 11% off the top, and last year people weren't going out much anyhow -- so the amount of change in jars spiked, and the amount coming back to banks and stores tanked. As for Memorials and future value -- there's a longer-term change that's going to have an effect there. In 1959 when Memorials first appeared, pennies mattered. One cent was enough money to bother with. Today? They're still a unit of account, but their stored value is too little to be anything but an annoyance. Most people either throw them away (either intentionally or accidentally), or put them in a jar until they can be thrown away. A few people will still collect them, but the days when they'd capture the attention of most (or even many) children are long gone. That used to be one of the big gateways into coin collecting. I can't help thinking that the hobby will be much smaller without it.
Maybe I'm jaded. My wife is the exact change queen. She carries around a wallet that weighs as much as a cinder block, because of all of the coins. Any time there's an amount other than "00" to the right of the decimal and she's paying with cash, she has to fish out exact change. Anyway, check out my hit today - probably my best haul ever. All mint rolls. One roll each 2009-P & D "Professional Life" pennies, one roll each 2005-P & D "Buffalo reverse" nickels, one roll 2000-P Sacagawea dollars.
PROBABLY SORTED THROUGH ABOUT 600.00 OR SO IN THE LAST YEAR, MOSTLY CENTS, DIMES AND NICKELS, THOUGH A FEW QUARTER ROLLS NOW AND AGAIN..I FIND A LOT OF 2008-2021 DIE CRACK NICKELS, AND A FEW CLASHES, NOT MUCH FOR CENTS, MOSTLY COLLAR CLASHES AND UNC ONES.. FOR DIMES, I HAVE BEEN REALLY LUCKY FINDING 2019-21 DIE CHIP AND DIE CRACKED ONES, GOING TO GET A 500.00 BOX OF HALVES (I HAVE TO PREPAY AT THE BANK, AND IT IS THE MIN AMOUNT TO ORDER) GOING TO DO THAT NEXT MONTH AND HOPE FOR SOME UNC 2020 AND 21'S MAYBE SOME 40%..WE'LL SEE I WILL MAKE A POST WHEN I GET THE MONSTER BOX, LOL
