Where do coins go?!

Ok, this may be a dumb question, but so what, I need to know because it's driving me crazy. Doing some quick and very unscientific research, I found that the US mint has made well over 100 billion coins in all denominations just between 2000 and 2007. Thats just seven measly years worth. Now consider they've been actively minting coins for over 230 years. Thats a butt load of coins, no matter how you look at it. We all know the relative life expectancy of a coin in active circulation is about 30 years, so we can easily tripple that 100 billion figure and assume there should be no less than 300 billion US coins floating around out there. Thats enough small change for ever man, woman and child in this country to own about 5 Brinks truckloads of coins. Yet, the mint continually pops out billions more every year based on demand. So here's my question, finally:

Where the heck do all the billions upon billions of coins vanish to? There should be billions on unneeded coins everywhere, coming out our ears, clogging up our rivers, littering out forests, and so on. Where are they? I assume a small percentage are lost, damaged and hoarded by ravenous collectors, but I can't buy that would be more than 1% total. Are they being housed in underground bunkers at area 51? Smuggled to other planets? Or do they simply dissolve after a few months? Has anyone ever wondered about this as well? Maybe I just have too much time to think about useless stuff at work, I don't know.
Guy~

 

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Good piont but you lost me at Area 51

 

Well - every retail store and bank have to keep change around. Coin hoarders that toss all that change into a jug. Collectors for the mint sets and state quarters, etc. Not counting proofs - it adds up. Not to mention the coins that go overseas for various reasons.

 

Attrition, banks and businesses, and the pockets and jars of billions of people around the world.

 

There's a lot change hanging out in tip jars at Starbucks coffee shops (amongst all the tip jars that are everywhere these days). Even after the chain closed a bunch of shops in 2008 there are still about 6,600 U.S. outlets (more than 16,000 Starbucks stores worldwide per online sources). Amongst all the places coins vanish to, I think most are in plain sight like this.

 

Let's assume your estimate of 300 billion coins total produced by the US Mint over its 217-year history (not 230 years) is accurate. With a current population of about 300 million in the US that is about 1,000 coins per citizen. That is far from an overflowing Brink's truck per person.

For silver coinage practically all of it has been taken out of circulation. (Yes, it is possible to find a silver coin every now and then but most of those reenter cirulation by a child, thief or other unknowing person rather than having circulated continuously since being minted.) Many of the silver coins minted have been melted - a LOT of them by the Mint to recoin. How many Morgan and Seated Lib and Trade Dollars were melted under the Pittman Act? 230 million comes to mind. That's 230 million coins you can subtract from the total mintage right there that no longer exist. Add to that the untold numbers of other coins melted by the Mint in the 1850s (when the weight of silver coins - excepting dollars - was reduced) and in the 1870s when Large Cents, Half Cents, Flying Eagle Cents and Indian Head Cents were melted by the ton to be recoined into new Indian Head Cents. You need to deduct those millions and millions of coins from the total also.

How many coins have been melted over the years by private citizens? Millions and millions. How many have been made into jewelry? (Think about belts and hats decorated with Buffalo Nickels, Mercury Dimes and Indian Head Cents that have had the obverse design cut out and made into bracelets, etc.) How many Cents have been smashed in machines that make elongated cents? How many Cents and other coins have been flattened by trains by kids over the years? And how many coins have simply been lost over the centuries? (I know the figure is a LOT based on my limited experience with a metal detector.) Whatever those add up to needs to be deducted from the total mintage figure.

Lastly, how many coins have been collected over the years? The answer is a LOT. There is another thread going now discussing saving bronze Memorial Cents - common, common, common coins but many people hoard them nonetheless.

I suggest that your figure of 1% of all coins ever minted by the US Mint having been lost, damaged or "hoarded" by collectors is WAY, WAY, WAY low.

 

How many coins are in fountains? I want a total...NOW!

 

Just think of all of theold coins still in the old gumball machines setting around in antique stores and the ones that a collector may have .I had a friend at work that was a janitor at work they were remodeling the ladys bathroom and there was a certain metal box that women have hanging up. he found it outside with the scrap metal so he started kicking it around I guess he was bored, he noticed when he kicked it the certain box didnt move like it should, he got a screwdriver to open it up it was 3/4 full of mercury dimes. hOW LUCKY CAN A PERSON GET.

 

Wow...


When coins start looking REALLY ugly the federal reserves take them out of circulation.

 

Hobo, the 300 billion figure is just what should have been minted in the past 30 years, not the past 217 years. Like I said, there were over 100 billion minted just between 2000 and 2007. I imagine the number would be well into the trillions for the entire mintage run.
Guy~

 

I've got the solution.

The tooth fairy hoards them so she can give them out to all the kids who lose their teeth. 30 - 32 teeth per child x billions of children = all the remaining coins held by the tooth fairy . They'll soon be back in circulation when these kids spend them. Some will collect them like us.

Coleguy, I am happy to answer your question with a truly profound and thoughtful response.

Bruce hya::whistle:

 

Hm.. I must have been gypped tooth fairy used to give me paper money

 

SPACE/TIME thing

:stooge:
Newtonian physics need not apply.

 

Almost everyone I know has jars or cans full of pennies and nickels and dimes. They're not worth much these days, and too bulky to carry around. Collectively, there are 300 million of us with probably an average of a few hundred coins each stowed away. Not so much for hoarding as it is for comfort and convenience of not wagging a bunch of pennies to the store.

 

WOW, sure are a lot of people out there that didn't grow up like I did. Every kid I ever knew did things to coins as follows: Trow in wishing wells, throw accross a river, place on RR tracks, melt in Chem labs in school, melt in a garage, try welding one to a ladder, shoot at them with guns or air rifles, blow them up with fire crackers, drill a hole in one and make a necklace for your 4th grade girl friend, smash with a hammer for fun, bury them in a place for the future like the pirates did and many, many more things. I'm amazed that there are any left at all from what we did.

 

i have found thousands with this:

 

I know of one individual that has several 5 gallon buckets of buffalo nickels in his garage, I have known this guy since the early 70's and not a bucket has been touched in the years I have known him. Thats just one person. How many people have those absopure jugs with change in them? Heck I have one up at my cottage that has been there for 30+ years getting added to everytime I go there.

 

Carl, you ever take some Cents and go to the lake and use a slingshot to launch them? They skip pretty good!

 

I think you've gotten excellent replies from everyone. Everybody is nailing it. How many wishing wells and fountains are out there literally covered with change?
Almost everybody has a change jar. I've got a change bank here with notches on the tubes so you know how much change is in it. I just cashed it all in last month and started over recently. It already has $12.25 of quarters, $2.40 worth of dimes and 0.80 worth of nickels in it. All of which obtained just in the last few weeks. That change will be sitting there until October when I'll likely cash it in for extra cash for a coin show.

A co-worker told me his buddy brought a huge glass jug full of change recently to the bank that he's had for decades. He just cashed it in and there was $1,100 in it.

I metal detect occasionally as well. I've got an old house. I thought maybe I would find some old change around here. But all I ended up finding was a couple of state quarter, already buried in the yard a few inches deep!
I went out to my mom's house. Found two pennies, two dimes and a 1990 nickel about 6 inches deep. All scattered around the yard. I found a bunch of change in my dad's yard as well. There's probably, literally tons worth of change lost and buried in the ground around the world on accident.
Not to mention everything the mint has melted down and doesn't exist anymore. I've seen people on ebay that cut out the fields of half dollars and silver dollars and turn them into neat money clips.

Think how many state quarters collections there are out there now. Almost everybody has one. Think how many dealers have. All those are not circulating, likely in the millions.

Just think how many cash registers exist in this country alone that are full of change!! How many parking meters? How many vending machines are there? Change machines. Rolls on top of rolls at thousands of banks. Hoarders. Collectors. And on and on.

It's a big country. It's not that surprising to me that they have to keep producing change when you think about how much we use it, don't use it, lose it, collect it and destroy it.