World's Worst Cent Collection?

Back in 2012-13, I took up the hobby of searching penny rolls for errors, wheaties, foreign, copper, etc, etc. It was a fun, cheap way to satiate my treasure hunting urges, and I was actually able to find a few interesting varieties, but unfortunately, I started losing interest when the majority of the coins had transitioned into shields.

I used to get boxes of rolls, search them, and then return them to the coin machine at my bank. After a few times, I learned that the really crappy, damaged, or gunky coins would junk up the counting machine, so I started tossing the really trashy ones into a jar while searching. At some point, I went through the junk jar and realized that I had a pretty wide distribution of dates/mints. I had an empty Whitman folder laying around, so I decided to see if I could complete a "Worst" collection of each example.

I had completely forgotten about this collection, but came across it while organizing some boxes in the garage. It brought back a lot of memories and I found it interesting to see just how trashy coins can be in circulation! Anyway, I thought you guys might get a kick out of it as well. Has anyone done something similar? If so, lets see the pics!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

That's a pretty cool looking set!
I'd be proud of assembling it.
Now go to eBay or etsy and list it for $1,000 as a super rare one of a kind treasure.

 

I actually quite like it! I have never done a set like that before but I think it does look cool and you don't have to worry about toning, tarnishing, or any other sort of environmental damage.

 

I love this so much! The coins themselves are worthless, but the fun of putting the set together is priceless.

 

What a fun idea!

 

@Penny Luster
I was thinking the same thing, great idea.

 

The Zincolns make it too easy lol. That's a fun set, even if worthless.

 

Very interesting I love it!!!!!.

 

And you can always downgrade!

 

I always thought the cent collection that I put together as a kid in the 1960’s was the most humble cent collection around. You beat me hands down. Very fun idea.

 

The heck with fleabay, put it on etsy for $2,000! Great idea, and like one other has already stated, you can always downgrade!

 

Not only do you not have to worry about it, but a bit of random environmental damage might bump it up a few notches on the registry set list! Haha!

Ya, the difference is pretty stark when looking at the cents lined up in the folders. No matter how terrible they are, the copper cents still seem to look pretty decent as compared to the zincs.

And, by the way, my collection isn't worthless! If I ever get really hard up, I'll always have around 70 cents there. Although, the cashier might be a bit hesitant to accept this pile of toxicity when I dump it on the counter

It's kinda funny. Once I got the collection going and started culling out old stuff for "better" coins, when I'd open a roll and see a penny that looked like it spent a year getting ran over in a Walmart parking lot followed by a year stuck under a toilet, I was like, "YEEESSSSS!!"

 

It could be just me, but I see at least one I would consider a keeper. Thanks for the great idea I'm going to try it. A new year a new idea! Good luck.

 

I have a contribution - you can just put it in any open space that you want...

 

what is going on with the 1989-p, is that gunk or an error?? nice set by the ways, different, but cool

 

awesome low baller set, slab em and then some idiot will pay 5k for it...i saw a half dollar (kennedy) in poor one go for almost $1500..pcgs label

 

What a novel idea. Good job.

 

Sweet! Be sure to post it up once you get it going. A bit of competition might motivate me to increase the crappiness of my collection!

As the worlds foremost (and probably only) expert on terrible cents from circulation, I'll go ahead and proclaim that the key dates must be the 1981 D and 1982 Ds. Good luck with those!

That would be a world-class coin for a "Worst" typeset. Unfortunately, the date and mint had to be legible to make it into the book.

It's some kind of foreign substance gunked on there (Same for the 92D). The coin is in pretty decent shape otherwise, but I figured that the glob of crap gave it enough character to add some variety to the collection.

 

I read these responses and I have to think "Are these the same people who don't understand the challenge of a Lowball collection?"

 

I feel bad for the damage these coins will do to a perfectly fine coin folder! A coin-toned album.