Penny Roll Stats?

[NSR60]

Around here, copper pennies are becoming noticeably scarcer. Lately, the ratio has been slightly better than 1 in 10; in pocket change, it's even less. But I've consistently found one wheat penny for every $5 searched, like clockwork.

Anyway, I was wondering if these results are in line with what others are seeing. Thoughts?

 

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[Quin]

I am still seeing about 20% copper in my boxes here in Michigan. As for wheats, I usually pull 8-10 per box. Of course, we also get a lot of Canadian coppers so that helps the ratio a bit. What part of the country are you in?

 

[Dozer D]

Coppers, I've been pulling 12-15% out of cent bank boxes, with about 7-10 wheaties. I'm still hoarding coppers when & where I can, but a lot of guys have dropped off the "copper band wagon", due to low copper price, storage, avail funds, and most of all waiting for the U S to get off the Penny standard (like Canada did few years ago).

 

[forkliftdriver]

I average about 20% in rolls but wheats are less and less each time

 

[NSR60]

I am still seeing about 20% copper in my boxes here in Michigan. As for wheats, I usually pull 8-10 per box. Of course, we also get a lot of Canadian coppers so that helps the ratio a bit. What part of the country are you in?

I'm in Tennessee. We don't see many Canadian coins, but we get a good mix of P's and D's.

I find Canadian pennies about as often as wheats--one or two for every ten rolls. That could account for much of the difference. You're still doing better on the wheats, though. And if you're going through $25 boxes, your sample size is undoubtedly larger.

In the past two weeks, I haven't seen as much as a copper in pocket change. But in recent months, I have gotten a 1917-D and an 1896 Indian Head--keeps things interesting.

I enjoy your videos, BTW.

 

[FormerTeller]

Central Indiana averaging a constant 27% copper from bank boxes. Wheat finds are nowhere near as good as yours though.

 

[baddbluff]

Copper is about 10-15% for me, but I don't keep them anymore. Wheats seem to be down- lucky to get 8-10/box, sometimes fewer. What I really need is like a civil war token to motivate me a little - wouldn't that be neat? [emoji12]

 

[Trezurehunter]

The copper Lincolns will soon be like the silver Halves. You will notice fewer and fewer as each year passes. There are an awful lot of people in this hobby now, and I'm glad that I started looking for silver Halves 40 years ago. ( When you didn't have to look to hard to find one ). My dad taught me well !!

 

[NSR60]

The copper Lincolns will soon be like the silver Halves. You will notice fewer and fewer as each year passes. There are an awful lot of people in this hobby now, and I'm glad that I started looking for silver Halves 40 years ago. ( When you didn't have to look to hard to find one ). My dad taught me well !!

Inevitably the coppers will become harder to find, with all of us out there enforcing Gresham's Law. Right now, you'd be lucky to get a 10 percent premium from a dealer, but the wheats and occasional IHP's keep it worthwhile. And finding a dime in a penny roll=instant win.

My dad brought home a couple of Morgans from Vegas once. In the early '70's, before precious metals really took off, some people were still using them in the slots.

 

[FormerTeller]

The copper Lincolns will soon be like the silver Halves. You will notice fewer and fewer as each year passes.

Disagree. I've consistently found 27% copper for the last 6 years. Enough people are returning them into the wild to keep stocks up IMO. I doubt there will be any real reduction in copper finds until either the cent is abolished or Congress allows us to melt cents again. Then it'll be a free-for-all!

 

[GMan00001]

There are two arguments being made that are both partially correct.

I agree that there will be roughly the same number of copper cents in the wild as people will keep cashing them in (minus the small percentage lost or destroyed). However, as each year passes and more cents are minted, the percentage of copper found will continue to go down as the total number of copper cents minted compared to the total number of all type of cents minted will be a smaller percentage.


The example that follows assumes:
a) No coins have been pulled from circulation, lost, or destroyed (though we all know some has been).
b) No coins before 1909 and no foreign coins are a percentage of the coins searched. Just to make the math simpler.

Example:
If you add up all cents minted starting at 1909 through 1981 (+50% of the 1982 mintage as I wasn't sure of the breakdown for 1982), the total number of copper cents minted is 175,611,234,077.

The total number of cents minted from 1983 through 2016 (+50% of the 1982 mintage) is 328,731,909,501.

So at the end of the 2016, at best one could expect to find approximately 34.82% would be copper as that is the percentage of copper ever minted. The equation is 175,611,234,077 / (175,611,234,077 + 328,731,909,501)

Taking those numbers forward one year and assume that in 2017 the United States mints the same number of cents as it did in 2016 (9,118,400,000). Then at the end of 2017, the max copper percentage drops to 34.20% as the total number of copper cents is a smaller percentage of the total cents minted even though the total number of copper cents in circulation didn't change.

Summary:
Assuming the mintage numbers stay the same as they were in 2016, each year the find rate of copper cents in circulation will be ~0.6% less even if no copper cents are pulled.



And just for more fun with math of what is really left out there, let's use wheat cents. From 1909-1958, there were 25,817,950,007 cents minted. If they were all in circulation and randomly distributed, one would expect to find on average that 5.12% of all cents searched were wheat cents. That would work out to roughly 128 wheat cents per $25 box. Obviously, many wheat cents have been pulled, lost, or destroyed, so the actual find percentage is considerably less. Although it varies based on location, the average number of wheat cents found per $25 box seems to be ~10 (or a find percentage of 0.4%). If that's true, it means 10 of every 128 wheat cents is still circulating, leaving only 2,017,027,344 wheat cents yet to be pulled from circulation. Still some work to do!


Another note:
Just subtracting the number of wheat cents no longer from circulation (based on the find rate), the maximum copper % find rate would drop from 34.8% at the end of 2016 to about 30.08%. Subtract the other copper cents that have been lost, destroyed or pulled from circulation already and that is the actual copper % in circulation.

If enough people had interest, you could do some analysis to figure out what percentage of copper is actually still in circulation. It's not a number I ever tracked, so I have no data on the subject to try to figure it out. It would be best to have find rates for a number of different locations in the country as well as multiple searches at each location across a period of time to make it statistically significant or at least close.

 

[FormerTeller]

I don't disagree with your math or the theoretical probabilities based on that math. However, the statistics based on my 6 years of actual data does disagree...

 

[GMan00001]

I don't disagree with your math or the theoretical probabilities based on that math. However, the statistics based on my 6 years of actual data does disagree...

The theoretical numbers would be based on searches averaged across the country. There are locations which will be better and others that will be worse. Also some will probably not see much of a difference while others will show a greater difference than the theoretical numbers indicate they should.

This is just a guess on my part, but I suspect the new cents are mainly shipped to where more cents are needed. I would suspect growing cities/areas would likely see lower percentages as I suspect more newly minted cents are shipped there, whereas shrinking areas or areas of stagnant population growth probably just recirculate the same cents over and over and likely stay approximately consistent from a find percentage perspective.

Of course, it also matters how long it has been growing, stagnant, etc.

 

[walnuttree]

That makes cents,or here's my two cents, or penny for your thoughts? the current box I'm searching so far is one to three wheat cents per roll average. Lots of shiny 60's, 70's and up cents, some looking brilliant maybe from someones collection but the wheat cents old looking. It's penny ante.

 

[Vern2]

My 7 yr old grandson and I traded for 4 rolls of pennies at Burger King. Our first time trying this hobby.
1 wheat and 28 coppers.
My GS was thrilled, cause he found the wheat.
Doing it again today after I pick him up from school.

 

[Dozer D]

Vern2: what better way to spend time with your grandson, and hopefully get him interested enough into this coin hobby, either as a folder collector or a CRH. Welcome to our forum, TN, and the hobby itself. Don't get discouraged, just keep at it slow & steady.

 

[Vern2]

Thank you, Dozier. He's my buddy. Just like I did his daddy, I am trying to impress upon him the value of saving money and coin collecting. His mother died 4/2016 of cancer, 38 yr old. So I have this great opportunity to help raise a special little boy.

Update: another 10 penny rolls today. 73 coppers, 1 wheat, a dime, and a Canadian cent. He found everything but 47 coppers. I'm getting beat up pretty bad.

 

[SWFLA456]

I'm getting quite a lot of coppers still here in Southwest FL. I know it sounds crazy but I was upwards of 40% last week both in spare change and rolls. I have only found 1 wheat though in rolls over the past couple months. I don't do boxes or anything high volume, but unroll about 12-15/week. I have found more wheaties in the coinstar than anywhere else. A couple weeks ago I found one ON TOP of a coinstar!

 

[NSR60]

And just for more fun with math of what is really left out there, let's use wheat cents. From 1909-1958, there were 25,817,950,007 cents minted. If they were all in circulation and randomly distributed, one would expect to find on average that 5.12% of all cents searched were wheat cents. That would work out to roughly 128 wheat cents per $25 box. Obviously, many wheat cents have been pulled, lost, or destroyed, so the actual find percentage is considerably less. Although it varies based on location, the average number of wheat cents found per $25 box seems to be ~10 (or a find percentage of 0.4%). If that's true, it means 10 of every 128 wheat cents is still circulating, leaving only 2,017,027,344 wheat cents yet to be pulled from circulation. Still some work to do!

Two billion wheat cents sounds like a lot...but it's sobering to realize that works out to six for every person in the United States.

I got my share today. This will help to bring up those averages.

 

[Vern2]

Thursday, I purchased a $50 bag of pennies from a local bank. That's 5,000 pennies. Whew.

About 1/3 through: 7 wheats & 1 Canadian penny. I won't know the % of copper until I finish the whole bag, but I am keeping a record. An educated guess maybe 15%.

In the beginning, I told myself and GS I would be happy with 10 wheaties.

Oldest so far is 1928.