What was the last year to find half cents and large cents in circulation? How many years after their mintage have they been floating around in circulation?
I’ve seen some people pull large cents out of half dollar rolls (or it might have been half cents out of quarter rolls) on TreasureNet. Quite the anomaly.
Well, that's just a little before my time. But being the anxiety animal, with some major psychotic issues that I have been turned into now as a coin hunter., MAN I am sure that I probably had many Mercury dimes and Buffalo Nickels in my pocket back then in the 60's. Didn't mean anything to me way back then, but I know I didn't have any money either. But would LOVE to have even just a pocket full of those coins now!
The demise of the large cent in 1857 got coin collecting started in this country. Large cents were not circulating well prior to the legislation that ended them. They did not circulate well outside of the large cities. Half cents circulated even less. My guess is the large cents were out of circulation by mid 1862, at the latest, when the small cents were hoarded because of the Civil War. After the war, the small Cents came out of hiding, but the large cents probably did not re-appear. They were kept as “collectors’ items.” Even if people didn’t view them as something of value, they were too large, heavy and inconvenient to use.
The place to find that information is old mint reports. They often reported on uncurrent coinage turned in for melting. I know I searched some of that out once and I believe there were still large cents coming in in the 1870's or 80's.
Did a little checking (very little) and in 1880 344,000 large cents were returned to the mint for remelting so apparently there were still some circulating in 1880. The 1879 report shows 552,000 copper cents were melted down that year. (Note the report breaks down the recoinage by copper cents, nickel cents and bronze cents, so the copper cents would be large cents.) I jumped ahead to 1890. There are no numerical figures in that report, but it does say that $79.49 worth of tin and zinc were added to the copper cents melted to bring them to the proper alloy. So apparently some large cents were still arriving in 1890.
The last year in circulation? I wouldn't know. Who would? We still find Buffalo and Shield Nickels in circulation. Look at the last year of minting and do a little deductive reasoning. Not trying to be mean, smart or anything else. Think about what you are asking.
