As I was sitting this afternoon going through some cent rolls, I went through about a dozen and hit at least one wheat in every roll. A few rolls had 2 wheats. I think that I've mentioned before that I've just returned back to the hobby after about 15 years out of it. And it seems to me that as I've been searching cent rolls, that wheaties are a lot more common than they were when I was roll searching back in the 80's and 90's. I'm just thinking out loud here but I wondering if this may have something to do with it.... Back in the "old" days, before the plethora of modern coin designs, I think people were more aware of the coins that passed through their hands. For those in the 80's, a large percent of the work force grew up in the 60's and 70's and many of those were around for the change from wheat to memorial reverse. For those 20+ years, there was only one design on the backs of cents (or any of the denominations for that matter). Wheaties stood out as different and were eagerly collected as different even if they weren't valuable. So they were quickly filtered from circulation and therefore I remember searching through dozens of rolls of cents before I found a wheat. Now fast forward to today. The change from wheat to memorial is an unknown event except for the oldest of us still around. But in the past 2 decades, we've been subjected to not only a change from memorial to shield, but even multiple reverses in 2009. With the nickel, there has been a significant obverse change with multiple reverses. And of course with the quarter, there's been nearly a hundred different designs dumped into the pipeline. In fact, the only circulating coin that has avoided any design change has been the dime. Because of this, I think that possibly the current generations have become immune or even indifferent to their coins. So when a wheatie flows through their hands, they don't even give it a second thought. It's simply another of a plethora of designs out there! Of course, I could be wrong. Again, I'm just thinking out loud. But regardless of the reason, I'm enjoying finding wheat cents rather plentiful today.
May be your area, or a nice bout of luck upon your return. But in my personal experience I typically find an average of 1 in every 4 rolls. I do agree that people are less aware of the coins they use in transactions these days, and I've encountered several bank tellers who don't even know what a wheat penny is. Also from experience working at a thrift shop I know a lot of older Americans on a fixed income are spending change from their jars these days.
When I collected as a kid in the mid-late 80s, wheat pennies were like hen's teeth - I occasionally searched penny jars of family members and rarely came up with a wheatie, even after finding multiple AU/BU 1959, 1960, etc coins. Now I get a wheat penny in change as often as once a week, and even in a bad batch of bank rolls, I'll still come up with 1 or 2 for every $5 searched.
It's interesting how different people have different experiences. Theshoegazer seems to be having a similar experience as me. But Chewmassa has the opposite experience. Perhaps it is based on geography or some other factor. I do like Chewmassa's comment about older folks spending their change jars. I hadn't thought of that but I like that kind of thinking outside the box.
No. They are less common. There is a finite number of wheaties and as more and more have been set aside the last 50 years there are less and less in circulation. What you experienced was just a freak anomaly.
I wish I could get that many. The box I'm searching now has only given up three wheaties and I only have 10 rolls left. But I've also had some rolls earlier this year that out of three rolls I ended up with 41 wheaties. Keeps it exciting Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
