question about pennies

i've been buying penny rolls and collecting the copper and wheat pennies and have a question.

i notice that some of the pennies, like ones from the 60's, are shiny. i have a 1960 that is SHINY. most pennies from the 60's and 70's are really brown but some are almost like they came out of a new roll last week.

kind of wondering about these really old coins being in really nice condition.

so far the best one seems to be a 1960. its the oldest and best looking.

no pictures yet, i want someone to give me some info first. why would a penny that old be in such nice condition? lincoln seems to "stand out" more on it than most pennies, especially later pennies from the 80's and 90's.

i'm also looking for a source for lincoln cents and errors and others thing that might make some of them worth something.

hate to think i'd get rid of a penny that might be worth something.

 

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someone might have had that 1960 in their collection, and just decided to spend it.
Or maybe someone has used a cleaner on it and it has given up its dull appearance.

 

I put u n c cents and nickels back in circulation all the time just to spark the fire in a new collector maybe that is how you got yours.

 

Here is a good source for errors http://www.coppercoins.com/

 

i have another 196 something...not sure what, the last number is missing. the in god we strust is almonst non existant and lib is missing in liberty, actually the i and ib looks smashed and the l doesnt appear there at all...i cant tell if something wore off these things just within the "rim" of the coin or if its some muck got in the die and didnt strike the coin very well. the other side looks ok for circulated so im not sure. i would think that if something wore of these things you see it all around...and i dont see anything.

im trying to learn about coins starting with pennies and the more pennies i look at the more differences i see, how detailed it is or how worn it is. i think of it as good practice.


i'll see if i can scan it and get a decent scan. my scanner didnt like the quarter i tried to scan...maybe this penny will have better luck.

 

here's the penny. its the best scan i could produce.

 

Where?

All I see is a US cent.

 

penny, cent. picky picky!

 

I dunno, those wrappers that those copper coins come in are often printed with "50 Pennies" ... just sayin'...

 

The answer is simple. Any cent that has not browned has been taken care of by some means. Either by being treasured by a collector or hoarded by someone. But you must know that copper if subject to the right environment will brown.

I have rolls of cents from the fifties and sixties that are BU and red. But if you look at the mintages from the mid fifties throught the sixties you'll see that there where hundreds of millions minted and sometimes almost 2 billion minted. These large mintages give room for many many cents to be saved at low expence.

Look and see if you have a large or small date 1960 cent.

 

its a large date.

 

Hmmm... whether large mintage or small, a cent still costs a cent when new -- how does large mintage numbers make it more economical to save a certain date?

 

First of all with mintages in the hundreds of millions there were no shortages. Second, 50 cents was worth a lot more, but still a lot easier to put aside compared to 2 dollar roll of nickels or 5 dollar roll of dimes etc.

I grew up in the sixties and rather poor for that matter. A hand full of cents BU or other wise could buy a kid a great deal back then.

I guess my point was that at any income level a collector would have no trouble putting 1 cent roll(s) aside in the late fifties and sixties. Maybe that's why there are some many BU's from that era still around.

 

Saw that coming. LOL

:whistle:

 

yup.........

 

Apparently it was quite the thing to save cents by the roll for a while. You can find some pretty, red cents going relatively cheaply here and there from about the mid to late thirties on thanks to that fad. You can find them earlier but since people were saving them by the roll there are a lot more of them from that time. There seems to be a cut off date about 1934 or so where the price of a B.U. cent shoots up dramatically. It's kinda cool that they did that, you can get a set from then to now that look really nice for pretty much next to nothing compared to what it would cost for anything else from that time.

 

pennyencil: cent

 

Penny -cent, tell all the companies that print the rolls, as they all say pennies, while none say cents that I've seen.

 

Coppercoins.com is a great source, iam going to pick up some "cents" right now. I do agree even though it says "pennies" that is an english or british currency..picky does matter..just try to get into the habbit.


centencilenny GO CENT!





Peter

 

The U.S. one cent coin has been called a penny for longer than I've (or anyone else) on this forum has been alive.
The U.S. Congress calls it a penny and so does the A.N.A.

My 2 pennies worth!