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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 442626, member: 68&quot;]10,000,000,000 is certainly a big number and you&#039;re right that I do engage in hyperbole quite often but that&#039;s mostly just to shake up the status quo.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Numbers just don&#039;t mean much any more.&nbsp; Back in the old days people each saved as many coins as they could get their hands on each year.&nbsp; When mintages were low the coins were unavailable so few were saved.&nbsp; When a big mintage (like a &#039;19-S Lincoln) came along the coins were set aside in droves.&nbsp; Despite the huge mintages and the huge numbers set aside these coins would still increase eventually because they were affected by attrition.&nbsp; Each year a certain percentage of the number set aside simply gets burned up in a fire or flooded.&nbsp; There are lots and lots of ways that the coins disappear, but they do; inexoribly, year after year after year.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>In many cases the newer coins are not being set aside in the kinds of numbers they once were.&nbsp; How many people saved rolls of 1984-D pennies.&nbsp; It wasn&#039;t many and finding one of these today is not easy.&nbsp; They go for more than $10 per roll but remember there are two huge factors holding them back.&nbsp; Primarily people aren&#039;t interested in junk like an &#039;84-D cent. Everyone wants an &#039;09 or a 1919-S but most people don&#039;t even collect the memorials.&nbsp; The second factor is if you ever do find a roill of them the coins will be horrible.&nbsp; Fully half the rolls out there are corroded; there won&#039;t be a collectible coin in the roll.&nbsp; The rest will be as made but these were usually made very poorly.&nbsp; They have bad uneven surfaces with bubbles.&nbsp; Dies weren&#039;t changed often enough and the coins were banged up in the mint.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>When you add all these factors together it means that nice attractive coins aren&#039;t readily available from rolls and finding one gets pricey if you have to look at several rolls before finding one acceptable. There are the mint sets but these run $5 and 99% of the coins have problems.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Counting the coins in jars and change jars just isn&#039;t realistic.&nbsp; Sure if you dumped brand new coins in a jar in 1984 and didn&#039;t move them around a lot then you probably will have a few nice specimens.&nbsp; But this isn&#039;t the way it usually works.&nbsp; Most change jars are &quot;active&quot; and all the coins are rotated out every several years.&nbsp; Those that have remained since 1984 are going to have been moved around a lot and be damaged or worn.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve said many times that there aren&#039;t any really scarce modern cents in unc or even in chU and gem.&nbsp; There are clads that are but not cents.&nbsp; The cent just requires too little money to set aside.&nbsp; Everyone can afford 50c and many will set aside bags.&nbsp; It&#039;s not a matter of scarcity.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The issue is having the supply to meet the demand if and when these are as popular to collect as a 1919-S.&nbsp; There may not be so many of these left after so many years but quality isn&#039;t really an issue because most were made pretty nice and most that survive are close enough to being as made.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>IT IS THIS THAT DOESN&quot;T APPLY TO MODERNS.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>They weren&#039;t saved largely because they were such junk when they were new.&nbsp; You won&#039;t find an original roll of &#039;69 quarters because these coins were ugly.&nbsp; Just as the &#039;84-D was a bad coin and not saved it has also not survived well.&nbsp; Most collectors want a nice attractive example of a coin.&nbsp; Generally their standards are gem but they want a coin that&#039;s even, normally struck, and without corrosion and damage.&nbsp; Finding &#039;84-D&#039;s in 1984 that met this criteria wasn&#039;t much of a feat but you&#039;d be surprised how difficult it is today.&nbsp; While the attrition rate on saved 1919-S cents was probably only about 1% in most years (even lower on later cents like &#039;31-S) the attrition rate on &#039;84-D&#039;s is probably well over 3% and showing no signs of coming down.&nbsp; Indeed there&#039;s little chance it will come down until people start taking these coins seriously.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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