Largest Penny Collection?

I'm a pretty new collector just working on putting together a cent collection as far back as I can. I was just curious what the largest cent collection you guys have seen on this site or elsewhere. Basically what is the oldest date someone was able to get to and have all consecutive dates and mints.
Thanks!
Mike

 

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I cannot speak for others here but I can say that I have completed the Lincoln series (1909 to current) with all major varities in circulated condition and am about 50% complete on the wheat portion being complete in upper MS RD grades (mostly MS66). However, once I completed my circulated set of Lincolns I moved in to large cents and am no where near complete (either in terms of dates or varieties) though I have ~500 LC's (mostly in XF or better) ranging from 1794 - 1857.

As far as what I have seen - well, I know a couple people with a complete year set of LC and many more with complete IH and/or Lincoln sets and at least one person with a rather impressive FE set.

 

An elderly collector I knew in Iowa 20 years ago had every date/mm starting with the Chain cent in 1793. Now some, like the chain, weren't in great shape, and he didn't have all of the Sheldon varieties, he did have every date, mm, and Type. I do not recall, thinking about it, if he had the 1856 FE or not, though that was really a pattern anyway.

 

Not what you're asking, but while I was looking, I found that this dude had a cool collection.

• 1,308,459 Lincoln cents into a Coinstar
• Took over 7 hours
• weighed more than 4.5 tons

 

I used to have a photo "borrowed" from one of the PCGS members who had 9 - 50 gallon trash cans filled with pennies. That is roughly three times more than the 1.3 million processed by the Coin Star.

Chris

 

Pretty good amount. I am testing my memory, but I seem to remember a story in Coin World of a man about 20 years ago who had a whole basement of 50 gallon trash cans full of cents. The local bank offered him 80 cents on the dollar and had to hired trash men to go and get them out of the basement and put into a large truck. Numismatists got interested in the story since most of the cents were wheat cents, with a large amount of indian head cents. Lots of letters to the editor claiming they would have paid more than 80 cents on the dollar for the ability to buy these. They article said the Cleveland Fed bank did not need to order cents from the mint for a couple of years after these came into their vaults.

 

How could this many fit in a Coinstar?? lol

 

I currently have 1840 to present (minus the 56 FEC). Who needs that one anyway, I have my 56 avatar cent. I'm still looking for a nice 1839 that I can afford and after that I'll keep going backwards. I do have a scattered few earlier cents, but nothing along the lines of a complete set earlier than that.

 

Do we all have this much sense, I mean cents?

 

That coinstar machine had to have been a Decepticon, at least.

 

As the PennyGuy I have collected cents from 1793 to 2015. Regular issue coins, no varieties, errors, or patterns. Keep in mind that I have been at this collecting for quite a while.

 

Large collection. I don't have the story but there's a bunch of them.


Largest penny? It's made out of pennies.

 

The longest continous date run you can have is 1816 - 2015. No cents were made dated 1815.

I lack about three or four dates of having a complete date run 1793 - 2015 (Surprisingly the ones I am missing are all common dates, I have all the rare ones.) I have a fair # of the middle date large cent varieties, and 255 of the 295 Sheldon numbered early date varieties. My Indians and Lincolns are complete by date and mint. Oh and I one Fugio.

 

Nice Condor. I forgot the war of 1812 interrupted the flow of copper for cents that year. If I remember right they struck some that year, but none dated 1815, right?

Sad to say, I never got into the whole hole filling mentality of US collecting. The closest I got was kind of beginning this for 19th century halves but got bored.

 

well im 50% through with my lincol set altho i have 2 near complete albums im more into certified

 

I'm sure there are much larger collections of cents but the most impressive I've heard of is a guy who told me he had set aside a bag every year since ~1968 and even secured older bags to extend the run back as he could find them. These weren't just ordinary "bags and were really more like "100" roll sets since he was picky about condition.

In addition to this he also collected a few pristine full bags of choice coins where he could identify good runs and lots of empty bags in perfect condition. When I heard about this in the mid-'90's I wasn't extremely impressed but every year this collection is more and more impressive. A lot of those rolls sell for good money now and some of the dates are very tough to find choice specimens.

 

Correct, once the war ended the Mint immediately ordered planchets from Bolton. They arrived in December 1815 and they immediately began striking cents. Most likely using dies dated 1816. They may have used 1814 dies, but after a year and a half or more there would be a fair chance those dies may have rusted, also they would be using the 1816 dies in just a few days anyway. (In the high humidity of Philadelphia the tool steel of the dies tended to develop rust fairly quickly.) Not knowing when the planchets would be arriving they would not have made 1815 dies, but they knew they would have them in 1816 so they probably did have 1816 dies ready.

 

I have a date run of 1793 to 2015. But I am missing one variety to complete my dansco album of large cents. The Indian cents and my Lincoln albums are completed. Now just going thru and updating some of the large cents mainly the middle dates right now. It is a great collection to work on and will take a while to complete. Gotta love copper.

Wow - you been collecting cents for a long time. Don't worry - your still young tot compared to doug.

 

Gee Thanks Mark ......... I think.

 

Seems to me, if literally zero coins of a given date were made, it can't be an interruption to a date set to not have it. Just like nobody misses the 1957S mintmark.