And our big cents also. there was a box of world coins 10 of those for $1. A couple Mexico coins. And a couple Australia big pennies. But this one is my favorite oldest one.
If you get to coin shows or shops, you can usually find these cheap in the foreign pick boxes. Make a list of the dates you have and put it on your phone (or make a hardcopy like us old guys) so you have it on hand. Then you can start putting together a date set just like Lincoln Cents or Jeff. Nickels. You’ll be able to find a lot of diff dates. Years ago, I started doing this for a few selected foreign series and now have nice sets of German (1873-1945), Canadian, Australian, Ireland, and others. Eventually, you get to the point where you have to spend some bucks to buy the better dates, but you can usually acquire the common ones easily and cheaply. Something to consider if you’re looking for an interesting collecting topic.
This is just to show you that old ones do exist in Mint State. Don't be discouraged by this. What you are doing sounds like a lot of fun for a limited amount of money.
I really like the EARLY Victoria pennies These are even larger, higher relief, and considerably thicker. Nice thing about the 1860 to 1967 one though is they can be acquired very inexpensively if you just want a date and mint set. I have a full set I have less than $110 in. These were actually still circulating in England as late as the 1970's and you could still find pieces all the way back to the 1860's
