Wheat Pennies in circulation

I mean they aren't out of circulation yet but they sure aren't common. My question is when did they stop being commonly seen circulation?

 

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1959 when the Memorial Reverse was introduced.. then it gradually started to be seen less and less

 

how long did it take for them to basically disappear? I mean shield pennies have been around for like 5-6 years and they haven't seemed to make much of an impact on the number of memorial cents

 

Penny mintage really ramped up in the mid 70's so id think that the circulating wheats would have been mostly deluded by the end of the 70's. Memorial pennies had been minted in the mutli-billions each year. Wheats did not see that level of mintage so they were likely pushed out pretty quickly. Shield pennies have a lot more memorial pennies to push out of the way.

 

Define basically disappear? In the late 60's I could search my grandma's pennies each week and find a bunch. We are talkin a couple of dollars worth of pennies - not many. As the 70's went on you would see less and less each year. In the early 2000's going to Vegas I would always bring home a bag of change - still in 5 or 6 dollars of cents I would find 3 or 4. In my last three trips to vegas I am lucky if I find 1 in a couple of dollars of pennies.

 

I work part-time for Walmart. I'm a supervisor in the front of the store. I have a few of my fellow front-end people that set wheaties to the side for me. They get me anywhere from 2-10 each week. They have been slow the past few weeks because all we have been getting are 2016 rolls.

 

I guess its less common for the average person to come by pennies now but when I say uncommon I mean like maybe 5-10 per dollar. Like common enough to where you wouldn't really think much of it if you saw one

 

I see more and more each day. Everytime I come across one I throw it in the old wine jug........

 

I find on average 3 per bank box....they are out there.

 

And that is the scary part....I'm seeing a greater and great percentage of shield cents. At this pace I expect Memorial cents are going to dry up faster than most think as they are hoarded, collected, lost to attrition and reclaimed by the mint.

 

In every 50 roles of pennies I go through I average 15 Wheats.

 

The mint doesn't reclaim them.

The high speed sorter/counters that Brinks, Loomis, et al use are tuned to accept both copper and copper-plated zinc coins.