Only 4 S mintmarks out of thousands

I spent the last few days going through a huge jar of old pennies & I can't believe there were only 4 from San Francisco. Yes I know that the mint stopped doing circulation pennies in (1974?), but there were probably 100-150 coins in my jar that were struck before that. Weird...that's all.

 

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Where are you? I grew up in the East, and even when SF cents were still being minted for circulation, I'd have to go through thousands to find a single S-mint cent.

 

I'm in the middle of the US and never found many S mint coins.

 

Unless you live in California I've surprised you found that many.

 

I found three in one roll the other night but all were damaged.

 

Hey I'm in Las Vegas, NV...

 

Well I may have some good news! I can't confirm from your image....but you should check out Varietyvista.com and check your 72 S for an rpm. There are 3 however 2 are proofs your's isn't a proof so that narrows it down to an 72 s rpm 001.
In MS condition it's worth a few bucks....but even if not a cool find eh?

 

And true dat....if you found a "S" mm on the East coast during the 60's it was a major find.

 

I don't think that I've come across more than four or five S coins in my change ever and I've been collecting since before I can even remember.

 

lol it's funny you say that.. I just found this earlier today.

 

Well once again looks like another rpm on that 68 s. And you can check it at variety Vista since you have it in hand .
Do you know what to look for?

 

Old story. All "S" coins were mainly released West of the Mississippi River. All "D" were mainly released East of the Mississippi. That's the main reason for their locations. The "P" were mainly East also.

 

Plus, since not having an "S" mintmark on a cent since 1955, they were initially hoarded.

 

They were also horded and sold to collectors on the right coast. Mostly released on the left coast.
Another factor one must consider air travel..and you ask why? Well think about it in the late 50's early 60's only the affluent traveled by air. So any S minted coins that did travel via pocket change were few and far between . By the mid 70's air travel between the two coast was more affordable to the middle class. By that time San Francisco mint wasn't minting coins for circulation . Thus an S cent or nickel found on the East coast or heartland were slim to none.
Now as a paper boy whom served as well collected collected for the paper , my collection bag was nothing but silver coins ,.10,.25,.50 as well as buffalo and silver war era nickels. The wad of notes silver certificates , red seal U.S. bank notes,mostly 2 and 5's. However by late 68 the silver dried up. So 4 years after the clad coinage made its debut finding silver coins in change or collection for the news paper was just about done.
What was do able during this period was filling your Whitman folders. Cents book 1 was do able except for keys, Jefferson nickels except for a 50 D , Mercury dimes again except key dates. Roosevelt easy to complete . As well as Franklin half's .
And again S mint marks you had to buy at your LCS, but Philadelphia and Denver were obtainable in pocket change.

 

I went to their website & looked through photos of the 2 '72 proofs & the '72 circulated, but I'm confused to whether those are the ones found & there's still more, or if that's what to look for. I didn't have time to do a whole lot of research but I spent an hour trying to get a good photo of my '72 mm & failed miserably.

 

^^ that was exactly what I was thinking.

 

Cool! Thanks for that info..however I've never heard of the west & east coast of the USA referred to as 'right & left coast'.

 

And now you have learned something else new! And of course I live on the Right coast Unless by chance you're standing on the Canadian border looking South......in that case I'm totally a lefter

 

I live in western Montana. On average I get 4 or 5 S minted cents per roll when I search. I keep all S minted cents. I think I have like three rolls of various years. And almost a whole roll of 1970S cents.

While I have no problem finding them, I do have a problem finding quality ones. Low AU is about the best it gets with these in rolls around here.

 

Your's is the 001 rpm