So with all the new designs next year Im pretty excited as lincolns have always been a favorite with me. But then i read that they will be changing the reverse in 2010, effectively making this year the last year of the Memorial reverse. Does anyone else see memorial reverse cents becoming the next wheat penny? I was talking with an older gentleman at the local hobby shop who said that he remembers when indian pennys used to be like wheat pennys are now (meaning you could find a couple in rolls of pennys) and now you only find a few wheats in rolls.... do does anyone thing that within 50-75 years memorial pennies will be the next wheat penny? will our kids be searching for them and wonder why the heck we didnt save them ? lol
Indian Head cents were mostly struck in the millions and 10's of millions. Wheaties were mostly struck in the 10's of millions and 100's of millions. Memorials were mostly struck in the 100's of millions and billions. Will there be 10 to 100 times more collectors in the future? IMO, emphatically NO! So I don't see the Memorials becoming the next Wheaties. The only thing I can see affecting the worth of Memorials is: 1. a new design or medium. 2. the complete cessation of cents. And considering the number out there, it won't be much of an effect. In particular their increasing worth won't beat inflation.
Oh I bet people are still going to hoard them and pull them out of circulation. It's not going to make them valuable however. Look at wheat cents, most average circulated wheaties are worth only a few cents, just the key dates and errors that have value.
I understand they arent going to be worth much. I guess in a way do you think they will get as popular as wheats? Like if I find a wheat penny in my change.... no matter what the date. I take it out and put it with the rest of them i have. Like right now most memorial cents i get in change i look at for a split second. then they get tossed in my pocket ... spent... taken to the bank.. etc etc. to me (as im sure it does with others) wheat pennys are special to me because i didnt grow up with them and they are not easily found. Memorials to me are nothing more then a penny, if there is one laying on the street its trivial whether ill even spend the entergy pick it up. Thats what i meant by my initial post.
Wheat pennies are junk and will always be junk. Sure there are higher grades, better dates, and varieties which are very very collectible but the typical wheat cent is junk and will still exist in the billions two hundred years from now probably. The simple fact is that they have mostly been set aside so will remain com- mon. Memorial cents have not been set aside in such numbers and there remains a remote possibility that the bulk of them will be destroyed when the government withdraws the coins from cir- culation. In two hundred years the memorials could be much tougher ex- cept in unc. The zinc versions will probably be elusive since they corrode so badly. As soon as people find out that the pennies are being withdrawn they'll probably hoard all they can find and the memorials might be even more common than the wheats. In high grade the memorials tend to already be scarcer than the wheats but since they aren't widely collected there aren't many people who know it.
I think the memorial reverse will become the next wheat penny in like 70 years maybe sooner, but man there are a lot of them out there.
When considering the value of uncirculated wheat pennies, I think it comes down to the mindset curing the particular decades. Maybe collecting didn't have the same following back in twenties and earlier. Once you hit the '30s, uncirculated examples make a sudden, extreme drop in value. My guess is that is when people began hoarding them, and have continued to up until present. Take 1909 as an example of an exception. So many people saved them in uncirculated since they were a new design, and even to this day they can be bought uncirculated for only $20. The passing time has not made them harder to find. Once they are saved and eventually brought onto the market, they basically stay in the collector/dealer rotation of the market. I can't imagine an MS65 RD from the '70s ever being less common than they are now, at least in relation to the number of people who will want them.
