Wheat pennies?

I have paid very little over melt for most of my BU rolls and I disagree they dont have to be wheats to have value the 60's and 70's have a fair value in higher grades which almost all my rolls are. I have well over $600 in BU Rolls more than half are OBW rolls (see youtube video from richcali21) and it only takes one good coin and you can pay for your week of buying rolls. I just opened in another video a 1944 roll and they were all MS-65 or better and I did pay a little more I think I paid $6 for that one but was in a larger group of pre 1956 rolls. I love collecting the cent rolls but I collect silver as well and I have several U.S. type sets one complete in mostly first year types so there is room to collect them all!!!

 

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First, thanks for sharing the video. Nice stuff!!

I assumed (and should never have done that) that the OP was referring to circulated. That's what I see at auctions, flea markets, on ebay, because as some posters have commented, so many are/were pulled from circulation and saved, that those are now coming on to the market. I think there are better investments than random, circulated wheaties.

 

Strangely enough about a year and a half ago I did get a nice nearly BU 1943 in change at a McDo's drivethru. I have found a bit over a hundred of them from box searches - one box last year had 73 or so of them - but also had many other wheats so I figure someone must have dumped a coin collection into a coin counting machine.

 

At .05 cents each you'd get $750 for 100 lbs of pennies. Copper has an extremely poor value/storage ratio. It is also not rare it's just in high demand for industry but since it can be recycled and reused, it's not going to be rare in your lifetime.

 

The retail price of 5 cent each for wheats has been the same forever.

 

No, they are a horrible investment, even given your very generous estimates for future value. If they go from $0.05 to $0.15 in the next 35 years that's an annualized return of 3.2%, barely enough to keep up with inflation. Detecto, for the love of Christ, stop trying to take shortcuts and actually save some money. While bank accounts do not pay much interest, they are liquid assets which make them more valuable as a savings vehicle then $500 worth of copper pennies.

 

:d

 

Hey guys. Remmeber this, copper isnt precious metal. If wheat pennys gain value,
its gonna be the rolls of uncirculated wheaties that over time, people thought
they would never be valuable, and they dont protect it, it loses its grade.
So the rarer uncirculated ones will gain value, and I actually like the idea of
hoarding wheat pennies, even circulated because there old, and more and more
wheat pennys are getting damaged in circulation. Who knows, mabye the might be
worth a quarter a piece in circulated condition, in 20-40 years from know.
Im pretty sure it will happen, sooner or later; but copper value isnt
going to skyrocket any time soon. Mabye of your lucky, and your kids kids kids kids
kids might start coin collecting like you and then copper might be at
2x or 3x copper value as it is know, but thats most likely atleast 200-300 years from
know. Think like this- there is no copper shortage anywhere in the world.
Nowhere.
That is the reason I invest in silver, as it is precious metal, and its constantly
changing prices at large amounts, as this week silver lost 1.6 % value, meaning
I might invest if it drops another 2 % or so, and then when it goes up 5 or more %
then I sell it and profit, or I hold it for long term. That is my opinion.

 

Here is what I thought....

Common Indian head cents bring around 1000 dollars for a bag of 1000. So $1 each.

Any indian head cent is at least 104 years old.

Now any WHEAT cent is at least 55 years old.

In 30 years, I will be 50.

Any wheat cent will be at least 85 years old.

So if the Indian head cent climbed to $1 in 104 years, then there is a very good chance the wheat cent will be at least 25 cents.

If I amass 100,000 wheat cents, at 5 cents each, that is $5,000.

30 years from now, at 25 cents each, that is $25,000

As I said, right now, the value only goes up, never down, and always worth what I paid.

Stocks go up, stocks go down, and sometimes you loose your rear if the company goes under.

Can't go wrong with the wheat cent.

 

Unless you are using someone else's money, how in the flip are you buying anything, let alone miserable wheat cents?


Chutzpah, sheer chutzpah

 

I buy things and sell them on eBay?

 

I like the idea, but theres always time, transportation, and risk if it does gain value, but ill get 100 rolls for the heck of it and see if in 55 years ill have 5k in wheaties.

but mostly ill invest in silver or other precious metals.

 

Another get rich quick idea? I collect wheat cents, but not to make money. I keep any BU or AU pre 82 memorials I come across, but there is never going to be a value like silver or gold from copper cents.

 

Price is not based on age, it's based on supply and demand, there were 25 billion wheat cents minted vs 2 billion indian head. Last point to consider, what happens when, and it will happen, the cent is discontinued and kids no longer start off by collecting cents from circulation? What do you think drives the current price of wheat cents, it's baby boomers coming back into the field and finishing off a childhood set. This will not happen in 20-30 years as kids will no longer be collecting these as a first set.

Where are you pulling these numbers from? This is even more generous then your previous $0.05 to $0.15 'forecast'? But even going off your example it's a 5.5% annualized return, which I still would not consider a good investment. Plus there are carrying costs, liquidity costs, and pain in the rear costs. You do realize that 100,000 cents weights around 700 pounds, have fun moving that around with you for the next 30 years...

Why does the value only go up and not down? To my mind, wheat cents are the series with the greatest potential downside in price. Their price is based solely on the nostalgia of a huge demographic aging through their peak earning years.

Final thought to put the astronomically high number of surviving wheat cents into perspective for you. There are more 1909 s vdb's surviving today then there are ALL HALF CENT YEARS COMBINED!!! Then only way to simply keep the prices where they are is to keep the staggering demand for them up as well, is that a bet you want to make?

 

bulk wheats are mainly 1940's and 50's vintage.

mintage figures...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_cent_mintage_figures

an everage of at least a billion a year since 1940. Copper pennies can take circulation pretty well and these 1950's coins were certainly getting removed from circulation by the 1970's.

I've seen plenty of worn down ( AG) wheaties from the teens, but I don't think I've ever seen a post 1940 that would grade below VG. The hoards are mainly these later dates.

Let's say 20 billion were minted from 1940-58. None really wore out or were melted. I'm sure some got lost and tossed.

I think 6 billion or more could easily still exist.

Buying these now for "investment" is about as smart as saving circulated bicentennial coins around 1980, or $2 bills, Kennedy halves, Ike dollars, etc.

The only way this works out is if copper skyrockets , then the coins will have a melt value that works, but even if they became worth 50 cents each for the metal ( in 30 years), that would likely mean a period of extreme inflation thus negating the huge increase in value, and 1959-81 cents would be just as valuable. By that time you would be able to melt them.

You'd be much better off just hoarding nickels.

 

Huh? What if I wanna pay you using payPoo - isn't that a bit of an impossibility at the moment? Didn't payPoo go poo poo on you recently over a $100 chargeback?

 

this kid is like Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton !

 

I've been here on this forum, for less than or maybe right about a month. The first few days I was here, there were threads up about bringing this guy back from his ban. I read through them, then read some of his posts, and now all the ranting and raving and immature remarks that he post. I don't know his age, but when I was 19, I was in Iraq, with a wife and a 2 month old at home. That saying of growing up fast hit me harder than a sack of bricks. I find it absolutely amazing that people stick up for him, yet he continues to act the way he does.

I'm a proud supporter of this website, but I'm sorry, I think I'm going to be leaving for a while. Every other thread I see this kid gets it turned into some asinine, off the wall post. You can't even put him on the ignore list and not see his posts because everyone quotes his posts and constantly gives him advice that he scoffs at or tries to poke holes in, give a million and one excuses as to how the world is against him, and everyone else is at fault for his failures. It aggravates the heck out of me. I have Soldiers who are 19, 20, 21 years old that drive me insane at work, yet I can't even come onto my favorite forum, for my favorite hobby and not be able to enjoy what I'm reading.

 

Really not the place for this...

 

I hope you don't get banned for this! I agree though.