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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 147773, member: 68&quot;]I started collecting in &#039;57 and started watching my change (well... my dad&#039;s change) a little earlier.&nbsp; At that time Lincolns were heavily circulated and appeared about in proportion to their mintage except that the better dates were long gone.&nbsp; There were lots of buffalos but most of the early dates were unreadable and even the later dates were tough to find nice.&nbsp; XF&#039;s weren&#039;t too tough but AU&#039;s&nbsp; weren&#039;t seen.&nbsp; There were lots of war nickels and many didn&#039;t like them because they were dark and appeared dirty.&nbsp; Jeffersons ruled in change.&nbsp; In dimes it was the mercs.&nbsp; The Roosy was still new and I even heard the rumor about JS standing for Joseph Stalin.&nbsp; Quarters were interesting but there weren&#039;t many pre &#039;25 dates that were readable.&nbsp; The Washingtons were findable in high grade right back to 1932 though most were starting to really show some age.&nbsp; You could find just about any half dollar except the &#039;21&#039;s and the &#039;38-D.&nbsp; The &#039;53 was a little tougher.&nbsp; In this area you saw an occassional Columbian half but I understand that was almost unique to the Chicago area.&nbsp; Dollars weren&#039;t around yet.&nbsp; Oh, you could get them if you asked around but it was 1959/ 1960 before the treasury started pushing these out.&nbsp; Then there were mamouth releases in &#039;63.&nbsp; There was very little obsolete type of any sort.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>It was very exciting when the Lincoln was modified in 1959.&nbsp; Many people started collections of these right from the beginning but most quit in 1965 when silver was removed from the coinage.&nbsp; It was about &#039;65 that the last of the dated buffalos disappeared.&nbsp; By 1968 the FED began withdrawing silver from circulation and they quit in early &#039;69 because there were so few left that it didn&#039;t pay to sort them.&nbsp; All the silver was pretty much gone by 1970.&nbsp; About 1969 people even started pulling the wheat cents from circulation.&nbsp; These lasted until the mid-&#039;70&#039;s when the number flowing into circulation and the number flowing out hit a sort of steady state.&nbsp; The bicentennial was released in mid-&#039;76 to some small fanfare.&nbsp; These were a huge hit with the general public who immediately took to hording them.&nbsp; Only now in the last three years have they started coming back into circulation.&nbsp; In those days the half and dollar still enjoyed some limited circulation.&nbsp; Most all the bicentennial coins not being horded got spent but only about once per year on average.&nbsp; This circulation was basically dead by 1980 though the SBA and half lingered a couple more years.&nbsp; After this there was no real circulation of these coins except on a local basis in transit systems or casinos.&nbsp; This meant most of the coins were never used and simply sat in storage.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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