Occasionally I come across a lincoln cent from the 1960's and it looks as if it was fresh from the roll. I have a cup full of them... some have little black spots on them. Were they made keep their appearance or did these come from a lost stash somewhere...
Sounds like somebody's (or somebodies) stash got out. I live in an old town (as in average age of the residents) and I get old stuff (particularly notes) all the time. Basically, all those folks that survived the Depression are circulating their "sock in the mattress" stuff.
I would agree with KLJ, but so many were minted, and so many are dropped or left around and picked up latter.....
Many possible reasons. In some areas people are out of jobs and dig out the old jar of coins put aside for a rainy day and spend them. Others appear as criminals rob coin collections and spend the coins as just coins. common around where I live. I've talked to people that say they collected coins as a kid and then found the old Whitman folder in a closet and dumped the coins in a bank. Numerous kids in school chem classes experiment on making an old penny (cent) look like new and then put back in circulation. That is one we did by the hundreds both in high school and college. Then naturally there are banks that close due to one reason or other and bags of coins in thier vaults get spread out to other banks. Happened to two banks I used to get bags of cents from. Of course you could have found some coins from the penny fairy that uses magic to make all coins look pretty. :whistle: But don't tell anyone I told you. :secret:
I'm Back! I think just tons & tons of them were hoarded. That being what caused all cents being minted in '65, '66 & 67 to be made without mint marks to dampen the collector & hoarding craze. Not too much over 10 years ago I got rid of a bunch of mint sealed early '60's bags at about face or little more. It turned out to be not a very good investment. Apologies if I offended anyone.
I often buy original bank rolls of uncirculated coins & when I'm done searching the rolls, drop the now loose change in the nearby coinstar or spend them in vending machines. I've heard from a number of collectors who do the same, so this probably accounts for a few of the nice shiny older coins you find in circulation.
In addition to the large number of pre-'65 issues that get checked for gems and varieties and then spent, there is also the simple fact that the penny is worthless. In fact it's less than worthless since handling and counting costs exceed their face value. This means that many people refuse to deal with them in one way or another. Lots of people throw them in the garbage and billions are lost each year to the landfills and in- cinerators. This is a shame since they are toxic and will leach out of the landfills for many years. But more people just toss them in sock drawers or buckets. This creates a very low velocity for these coins and some can actually sit out of circulation for decades. Eventually they can reenter circulation and will be high grade.
