Lincoln Cents shut down I-95

Discussion in 'US Coins Forum' started by WingedLiberty, Sep 9, 2016.

  1. WingedLiberty

    WingedLiberty Well-Known Member

    (To be fair, my title is a bit off! These were copper planchets on the way to the mint.)

    From a News Report:

    Americans have a troubled relationship with the penny. John Oliver once said the copper-plated zinc disk “hangs around for no reason, like an appendix.” President Obama has called the penny a “metaphor” for the government’s inability to get “rid of things that don’t work,” and there is even an organization dedicated to retiring the little guy.

    And on Thursday, for 13 hours, drivers in Delaware learned to loathe the penny, too.

    At 1:53 a.m., a tractor-trailer carting 45,000 pounds of them overturned on Interstate 95 and caught fire, spewing the shiny bits across the road and ensnaring traffic for 13 hours, Delaware State Police said. The pennies, still blank, were en route to the Philadelphia Mint to be stamped with President Abraham Lincoln’s face and officially made into money.

    [​IMG]

    State police said the crash was caused when the driver, Stefan Marinkovic, 25, of Chicago, veered the tractor into a concrete barrier, and it’s unclear why that happened. Marinkovic was able to escape from the burning tractor and was later transported to a hospital with injuries that appeared to be not life-threatening. He was cited by troopers for inattentive driving.

    While waiting for traffic to clear, drivers pulled off into gas station parking lots, reported the News Journal, and one woman opened all her car doors, climbed into her trunk and read a paperback book.

    “Now those delays make cents,” one person wrote on Twitter.

    [​IMG]
     
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  3. Evan8

    Evan8 A Little Off Center

    Ah look out for one of these road rash cents ;)

    What did they do with them?
     
  4. josh's coins

    josh's coins Well-Known Member

    somebody had to pick them up one by one and load them into a different truck. Then those blanks were sent to the philly mint and they had to sort the damaged ones out then press the rest into money..

    But what's more likely that happened is that they gathered them up and dumped them into Delaware River like they do with everything else :D
     
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  5. eric6794

    eric6794 Well-Known Member

    what would really be funny is if after they minted these they sent them to a TPG to be slabbed as " I 95 Lincoln's" or " Marinkovic cents "
     
  6. V. Kurt Bellman

    V. Kurt Bellman Yes, I'm blunt! Get over your "feeeeelings".

    This would never have happened if the Mint still made its own blanks, like they used to for almost two centuries. A roll of metal would about be it.
     
    JonLen likes this.
  7. TJ1952

    TJ1952 Well-Known Member

  8. cpm9ball

    cpm9ball CANNOT RE-MEMBER

    The only problem would be that the cousin of the uncle of the government employee who recommended farming this out would have to go out of business.

    Chris
     
  9. V. Kurt Bellman

    V. Kurt Bellman Yes, I'm blunt! Get over your "feeeeelings".

    Live by the connection, ....

    Besides, you got it slightly wrong. It was the father of the girl that some idiot son of a Senator was having relations with.
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2016
  10. Markus1959

    Markus1959 Well-Known Member

    Damn - load up on Philly 2017's when they are avaliable - maybe a smaller mintage year!! Only 1 BILLION, not 3
     
    tommyc03 and Bambam8778 like this.
  11. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    Pretty sure they just sucked them up with a street sweeper. Getting the road usable again is far more important then attempting to salvage any of them
     
  12. V. Kurt Bellman

    V. Kurt Bellman Yes, I'm blunt! Get over your "feeeeelings".

    Sad thing is even a truckload lost is only a nick in the overall production. They'll just fill the lost production run with more dimes. Ewww!
     
  13. Markus1959

    Markus1959 Well-Known Member

    Pictures of the actuall incident showed workers vacuuming the blanks into a VAC-TANK truck.
     
  14. V. Kurt Bellman

    V. Kurt Bellman Yes, I'm blunt! Get over your "feeeeelings".

    And here I thought it was the coins themselves that s....... [-ell well in sets?]
     
  15. Bambam8778

    Bambam8778 Well-Known Member

    All of my friends at work were texting me and coming in my office (they know I crh cents and collect them) and said to look at the news! They thought that they were already cents and not blanks. Interesting!
     
  16. V. Kurt Bellman

    V. Kurt Bellman Yes, I'm blunt! Get over your "feeeeelings".

    That is interesting, and a coincidence, too. I used to think more people made "cents", but I later learned many of them are basically "blanks", too.
     
    Bambam8778 likes this.
  17. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    That makes sense.
     
  18. Markus1959

    Markus1959 Well-Known Member

    OH - I can see it now on Ebay - "September Copper Cent Spill Planchets" - ONE PCGS MS69 - just a few scratches from falling onto cement at 65 MPH other wise it would be MS70!! 9.99$ or best offer!

    So in reality the driver was paid to crash so the BIG 3 have something new to grade? Well if some are gonna say 9/11 was an "Inside" job, then why wasn't this?
    You see how all these conspiracy theories are?
     
  19. Markus1959

    Markus1959 Well-Known Member

    Well the only other option was to call in the homless and tell that 99 of these copper round things will get you something to eat at Taco Bell!
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2016
  20. Omegaraptor

    Omegaraptor Gobrecht/Longacre Enthusiast

    In 1857 when we got rid of the half cent, it was worth 14 cents in today's money. A great reason to get rid of the penny (and the nickel while we're at it).
     
  21. Pickin and Grinin

    Pickin and Grinin Well-Known Member

    I would have my metal detector out there. Checking the outlining areas.
     
    eric6794 and tommyc03 like this.
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