Wheat pennies?

Note that you really shouldn't be seeking investment tips on a coin forum. Whatever you do make sure that it is well diversified so that if one sector of the economy gets hit hard you don't lose the majority of your investment.

 

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Question: Tim - other than general interest, which your post about ??? about what has good investment returns with little risk - what is the point of asking this on a coin forum? Besides, it's not like it's likely that you will, for the foreseeable future, have anything to "invest" anyhow. So it seems a bit pointless unless it's to either stir a pot or as a way for someone else to invest their time and energy giving you 'answers' to things that are not even plausible for you to be doing right now. If it's a time-waster for others, where is your courtesy. If it's honest to goodness questions, then I would think that someone who reads as much as you do --- on the internet, as evidenced by your numerous posts (including cut/paste jobs) that you could, if you wanted to either look it up on the internet and make your own choices or go to the library and read up on it.

Not that I would do anything to belabor the point :devil: but it still seems to me that a number of your posts are just for attention.

 

Actually...I got a 1943-D steel penny in my change at the cafeteria at work...just this week! ...and a 1945-P. I suspect they're getting rolls from their bank's CoinStar machine. I found other odd dates (silver) in my change over the past year or so.

To your other questions...I think high grade (MS63+ Red) Wheat cents have been a good buy (I've been packing OBW rolls away for the past 7 years), but the prices are going up faster than seems reasonable at the moment.

Now to Memorial Cents...if the cent is discontinued (ala Canada), I think most folks will be hoarding the Wheaties. Pre-1982 Memorial cents will likely be returned to the FED where they will be taken out of circulation and melted. That may make early Memorial cents a real sleeper...eventually! :thumb:

Note: My Father bought a Mint bag of Memorial cents (P & D) from 1959 to 1964 (12 bags). He (and now I) have carried these things around for 50+ years and their purchase power now is less then when they were minted!!!

Just a "Word to the Wise"...for anyone planning on hoarding 2012 cents...hoping for a "Big Score" someday.

 

The fed will not take out the copper cents, they already are gone from circulation for the main part anyway.

 

Really? I still find plenty of them every day. :scratch: ...pre-1982 Memorial Cents, I mean.

 

I don't buy wheat pennies. All the wheat pennies that I have have come from either roll searching or from pocket change. I also keep all the pre-1982 pennies that I come across. The problem that I keep running into is weight. A box of pre-82 pennies weighs slightly over 17 pounds each. Weight does add up fast.

One of these days I just may start trying to sell off what I have.

 

I'm a bit in the same boat as you. I pulled out 103 wheats this go with my $100 buy, and of that I pulled $22 in pre 82 coppers. I sort them all by decade and then check each of the 10000 for errors, takes me a good week to sort through them all.

What I do though, is pull all of the bright shiny red pre 82's and put them into rolls. My ultimate goal being a 50 coin tube of each mint mark from each year. I'm up to 64, to include a roll of 60 D small dates and about a half roll of 60 small dates. I keep all 60's regardless of wear. This is memorial's only though, I have a few rolls of wheat BU's but that is a far off dream to get them ALL BU rolls.

As for Wheat Hoarding, I'm a cent lover, so I keep pretty much all of them that I come across, sort them by year and mint mark, roll them up and put them in $10 boxes by decade. Are they going to be worth much as an investment? No, probably not, but that's what I collect for me, not for money or profit.

Copper isn't a precious metal, so it's value in a cent won't ever be an investment worthy hoard. It's a fool's dream that someday they can cash out on them.

 

All from roll searching? That's certainly something to keep you busy! My true love lies with cents as well. I save all wheats for my collection, and hoard the pre-82 coppers in a large container. I am in the process of rolling and selling them. You'd be surprised what people are willing to pay for them on the Bay!

 

I've been able to put together over 2,000 wheats. I've place them into used pill bottles (300 to a bottle). Eventually, I will be going back and sorting them out in some fashion - most likely by decade. I know that I have quite a few of them from the '40's and '50's, but there is also quite a few of them from the teens and '20's.

Although I do do roll searching and keep all of copper coins that I come accross, I really don't have any expectation of being able to do something with the ones that I do have (wheat backed being a possible exception) I do see that the copper pennies are getting harder to come upon. When I started out I was averaging 40+% now I'm down to 22%.

The copper pennies go into a 55 gallon drum from the kids to figure out what to do with them. Right now it's about half way filled and I don't have any idea as to either how many are in the drum nor what the weight is. I just labeled the drum and they know it for them.

However the wheats are all for me. I have a short term goal of keeping the wheats until I find a 1909s vdb. It does look like I'm going to be at it for quite awhile now. I used to have 6 of those coins when I was younger but they disappeared while I was in the service.

 

I believe the gov is already pulling copper out of circulation. They seriously ramped up production of cents 2010 to current. My theory is they ramped it up to make up for what they have been removing. Since collectors largely ignore the 1959-1982 copper cents I think they may become more scare than the later wheat cents which have been widely hoarded. Like you, I believe they are "sleepers" and that they probably won't be awakened until they stop producing cents.

 

I have been roll searching pennies for ahile now and I believe that the dwingling percentages of copper is due to a combination of different factors. (1) an increase in the number of roll searchers (hand and machine), (2) the number of companies that are selling large lots of copper and wheat cents, (3) the continued minting of the penney and (4) time.

The item that continues to play havoc on the percentage of copper and wheat found in circulation is the continued production, with more being produced the amount left in circulation goes down. Impacting on everything is time. The greated amount of time between mint date and finding leaves open the opportunity for cents to be damaged and lost. So I think the biggest culprits are current production and time.

If the penny goes away right now it's not going to boost the number of either the wheat or copper cents. What's lost is lost and will not be replaced.