proof pennies

[Looter]

does anybody ever find proof pennies?? ive searched alot of pennies and found lots of post 75 s mints but never a pre 75 proof. am i unlucky or are they just super rare?

 

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[whitesid]

i have never gotten a single proof of any denomination of any year
but i would think they are rarer than the post 1975

 

[low xtreme]

nope, ive never found one either

 

[LJ]

I have found only a couple.

A friend of mine just sent me a little bag of about 78 Wheaties....all "S" Wheaties.

 

[AgCollector]

does anybody ever find proof pennies?? ive searched alot of pennies and found lots of post 75 s mints but never a pre 75 proof. am i unlucky or are they just super rare?

In my experience they are much, much more rare than proof halves. I have so far found 2 proof cents out of around 250,000 searched.

 

[sfinder]

Never a proof penny, but got a proof nickel from a vending machine not too long ago.

 

[LJ]

Question....just to make sure I understand what a proof penny is since I am not too familiar with pennies....is a proof penny any penny with an "S" mintmark?

 

[whitesid]

Question....just to make sure I understand what a proof penny is since I am not too familiar with pennies....is a proof penny any penny with an "S" mintmark?

as long as its not 1968-1974

 

[Jeffro]

Question....just to make sure I understand what a proof penny is since I am not too familiar with pennies....is a proof penny any penny with an "S" mintmark?

as long as its not 1968-1974

Scratch that- proofs were made from 1936-1942, 1950-1964, 1968-to present. From '36 through '64, they were made at Philly. '68 on are all from San Fran.

 

[bigtime400]

from the 59 and up............

There are earlier s mints that weren't proofs. as a matter of fact. 68 was the first year of the S mint proof if I am correct. Proofs were from Philly before that. I have never found a proof anything other then a half. I was always told the reason the proof sets get broken up is mainly for the penny collectors.

 

[Looter]

proof penny info:

1909-1942 proof coins made in philly
1943-1949 no proofs made? (none i know of atleast from books or pricing guides ive read)
1950-1964 back to philly
1965-1967 none (same as 43-49)
1968-1974 sanfransisco
1975-present sanfransisco only produces proofs

 

[GMan00001]

I have only found 1 proof penny to date (1987-S) while CRHing in the 100's of thousands of pennies searched.

I beileve proof pennies are hard to find primarily because the total number of proof pennies minted compared to the number of circulated pennies minted is a very low percentage. With halves the percentage is at least 10X higher for the highest mintage half dollar years and 200X+ higher for the lowest mintage half dollar years.

For example in 1971 they minted 3,220,733 proof sets so that's 3,220,733 each of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and halves.
They made 5,358,889,792 normal pennies in 1971. (Proof pennies were 0.0601% of 1971 mintage)
They made 457,261,424 normal halves in 1971. (Proof halves were 0.704% of 1971 mintage)

And since 1971 halves have been minted at significantly lower numbers (but roughly an equal number of proof sets). Today, no halves are minted for circulation and pennies are minted at a continually increasing rate that is now around 3X of what it was in 1971. So the percentage of proof halves compared to circulated halves is increasing as time goes on while the percentage of proof pennies is dropping.


Another factor is the fact that pennies do circulate and as such touch many more hands than half dollars do so there are additional opportunities for them to disappear from circulation.

 

[HobBob]

So far, only one proof.

 

[Immy]

20+ years of penny hunting and I've only found six:
1962, 1978-S, 1982-S, 1984-S, 1990-S, 2000-S.

I always wondered why they didn't show up more often and now GMan's figures provide a good explanation.