How long till memorials become like wheats?

Check the mintage numbers. If 10 billion memorials have been lost every year (for even 20+ years) there would be almost zero of them now. And the amount that could be lost would be less and less every year. 10 billion a year is not sustainable from the amount of Memorials minted.

 

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My impression from the OP is he is wondering how long until they are sildom showing up in bank rolls. We know they will never be rare or even uncommon in hoards simply because they made so many and so many are being preserved in hoards and change jars.

I found that wheats were still encountered some what regularly. By the 1980's they were done to well less than one per roll. By the mid to late 80's they were seldom encountered. So call it 20 to 25 years which seems to be about average for obsolete designs. The buffalo nickels lasted about 20 to 25 years as well from my experience. The Memorial was only discontinued 9 years ago. If so the memorials should be noticeably down around 2029, and seldom encountered by around 2034.

 

Ten billion a year are lost now because a high proportion are zincs that virtually evaporate and people are hording copper. Ten years ago it was only 8 billion a year and twenty years ago about 5 billion. Every year the cent is worth less and there are more being made to be destroyed because of this lack of any value. Every year a one cent coin is more akin to trash or garbage than it is money and trash goes to landfill. Who's going to stop vacuuming to pick up a penny? These coins are going from the mint to landfill but first they get mixed in a little with the pennies already in circulation. The vacuumer doesn't check the date on a penny before sucking it up but they all end up about the same place.

Pennies are being used a little less because many cash transactions are being rounded. If pennies were circulating there'd be no need to make more because of this but they don't really "circulate". Most of them accumulate in buckets or are destroyed by some means. For practical purposes virtually the entire population of 1959 - date pennies reside in these buckets because they aren't stored by the FED or mint. Banks have two way to get pennies, the very tiny percentage actively circulating and being returned by the counting houses and the buckets of pennies brought in by customers.

But make no mistake about it; about 90% of the mintage of the '71 cent no longer exists at all. At some point it met its demise at the business end of a Hoover or was tossed into Niagara Falls.

Perhaps the highest percentage of all cents that have been destroyed is the 1966. This is about 92%. Every year the number grows smaller but there are so "few" left that not many are being destroyed any longer. The vacuumer is very unlikely to hit a 1966.

 

They are never going to be rare but only because current conditions can't persist. If they persisted then in fifty years it would cost about $3 to produce a zincoln and there would be only a few thousand surviving 1966 cents. Nothing lasts and these trends can't last.

Pennies are already 35 years overdue for elimination.

I don't know how long it can last.

How long can we delude ourselves into believing that common sense is irrelevant and reality doesn't always have the last word?

 

If pennies are still being made in five years then attrition will be up to 15 billion a year. Every memorial that is destroyed will be replaced by a shield.

I would wager the proportion of memorials will be down to 20% by that time.

Attrition will wipe out the memorials ever faster as the coppers disappear and three zincs are made to replace them.

I do agree with your timetable except that I can't imagine pennies still being made in a few years.

 

You are correct. That was my original point. But I've enjoyed the turns the thread has taken.

 

It's illegal to melt them. Some have (and probably will be) been melted illegally, but not enough to make any difference.

 

Almost every coin being pulled out for their copper will probably end up being melted when the ban is lifted.

Some of these will be searched first but most will be sold by the pound or the ton.

 

It's a losing game. You break even when copper hits $6 a pound.
Alloyed copper is 25% of the spot price.
146 to the pound, etc.

 

Recyclers pay so little because like all American business now days they want all the profits for themselves. If it were legal to melt pennies the wholesale price would be up near 2c each. They would not be refined but rather used to make alloy and for chill scrap.

Most individuals will have some difficulty getting a fair price but there are lots of minor consumers of copper outside industry who would advertise for pennies and pay a more substantial price.

At 2c each shipping eats up much of the value unless you can use large shipments.

It might be a little presumptuous of me to assume most of the copper hoards will end up getting melted but I am assuming copper prices will continue to be subject to the same inflation that has already eliminated the value of pennies. Despite massive increases in the monetary base there has been relatively tame inflation for years. This is unnatural and probably can not continue much longer.

 

how about when they recently did those 2017 P pennies and they actually put the P mintmark underneath the date, arent they now the only coin made by the US that had a P mintmark written on any us coin ever? i bought a few rolls of those, wonder how long theyll take to get some decent value, although they did probably mint over a billion of them, i guess in a few decades i could crack open a roll and slab some perfect looking ones

 

They are the only CENT with the P mintmark. However, the P mintmark was also used on the WWII nickels of 1942-1945.

 

No. It's because it costs money to get the copper out of the cents in pure form.
Anyone hoarding pennies for future copper melting is in for a rude awakening.

 

May I ask why you believe the copper needs to be extracted in its pure form.

I don't know how much this would cost but would imagine it's at least a few hundred dollars per ton. ...And then there's more shipping as well.

 

Eventually people will realize the futility of pennies and we'll either get a 2 1/2 or just round up to nickels. Then they'll all disappear.

 

I heard that the nickel is about to get a makeover because it costs a lot more to make than it's worth. New manufacturing processes and different metal composites are being tried.

In the meantime, I'm hanging on to my five 1966 cents!

 

To answer your question, longer than you are prepared to wait.

 

@GDJMSP. How do you feel about this thread

 

Exactly. Spot on you are

 

I've tossed my share into the great niagara falls. Buffalo ny here. Looks like you caught me. You spoke the truth. Cheech. Will wear a disguise next time.