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Ridewithme38
Penny Sorter Member
USA
79 Posts |
 Posted - 02/11/2007 : 02:11:55
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Current estimates by the U.S. Mint place the number of pennies in circulation at around 140 billion. Others have estimated as many as 200 billion currently circulating. Since the first penny was minted in 1787, until present-day, over 300 billion pennies have been minted in the United States. So that leaves about 100 billion pennies that have been retired by the Mint, lost down sewer drains, stored in jars, smashed by trains, or collected by numismatists
in the past 200 years.
i have about 570 copper pennies...so thats about .000000285% of 200,000,000,000 how many do you have?
RUNNING TOTAL:
527 Copper
10 wheat
7 canadian
and a 250gram .999 pure copper bar(Jetco USA)
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Edited by - Ridewithme38 on 02/11/2007 12:36:06 |
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DadaOrwell
Penny Sorter Member
99 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2007 : 07:55:12
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how liquid are those copper bullion bars? Where can you get them? Where, if anywhere, can you sell them?
Want freedom?
Move to New Hampshire!
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Ardent Listener
Administrator
USA
4841 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2007 : 08:11:58
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quote:
Originally posted by DadaOrwell
how liquid are those copper bullion bars? Where can you get them? Where, if anywhere, can you sell them?
Want freedom?
Move to New Hampshire!
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I think you missed the point of this thread. You brought up some very interesting questions though. If you like, go ahead and start a new one in the bullion forum of this site.
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Burn paper dollars before you melt coins. |
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n/a
deleted
479 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2007 : 09:41:26
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I have 21 pounds of Canadian Pennies from the 1950s to the 1970s.
I have 12 boxes of US pennies (unsorted of course).
Most of the pennies removed from circulation have been removed by the mint itself, or am I wrong?
I'm sure that they are indeed kept as souvineers in other countries, and lost in the drains as you say.
The qwestion of how much is being hoarded due to Gresham's law is a very interesting one.
Lots of people who have pennies in a big jar are not aware of the melt value.
I will look for a copper bullion thread in the bullion area.
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"Financially, the US economy has degenerated into a sort of cargo cult, where people feel that they can continue to attract recycled petrodollars by dancing around piles of internet servers with their cell phones and their laptops."
-Dmitry Orlov |
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beercritic
Penny Pincher Member
USA
112 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2007 : 19:05:46
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I don't see the mint removing coins from circulation... Once banks have coins, how and why would they ship them back to the mint? Who does the sorting to cull the copper from the zinc? Who pays shipping?
Moreover, the mint buys the coin blanks, they don't produce them in-house. Even if the mint was receiving, sorting and reshipping the coins, it would seem to be an exercise in futility.
IIRC, the mint lost $40 Million on 1 & 5 cent coins last year. Who cares? The FED is counter-fiat-ing billions per day.
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just carl
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
601 Posts |
Posted - 02/21/2007 : 11:49:38
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A recent report by our government stated they think there is about 160,000,000 coin collectors in the USA alone. So what percent would that make for each collector to have? Math 101 now in process.
Carl |
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thebeave
Penny Sorter Member
USA
49 Posts |
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beercritic
Penny Pincher Member
USA
112 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2007 : 13:29:52
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160,000,000 coin collectors in the US? I guess they count ANYONE who saved a State Quarter or threee of their favorite states as a collector. Otherwise, IMO, no freaking way.
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 01:02:31
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Ridewithme38 and Carl posed interesting questions about how many of those pennies we each have and what would be our fair share as one of only 160 million collectors. You have to remember that a good portion of those 200 billion pennies are zincolns, especially if you look at the sort percentages which seem to be running in the 24-26% range for most of us except ridewithme38. Hopefully his percentages will improve. Pretty sure I have more than my fair share of copper cents (but I ain't giving them up) I tend to do my calculations by weight rather than running them all through the counter. Usually it takes about 147-152 copper cents to make a pound so I estimate 3 rolls (150 coins) per pound. A ton of copper cents is about 6,000 rolls or 300,000 coins. In my current hoard I have 2 tons of copper memorial cents (1.5 tons BU rolls and half a ton of circulated) + 34,000 wheat cents and an additional 32 boxes (80,000 coins) of unprocessed cents. If my sorting percentages hold at about 25% that would give me an additional 20,000 CU and 60,000 zinc. So my totals would be approximately 654,000 copper cents and 60,000 zincolns. Of course I take the zinc cents back to the bank and deposit them as soon as they are sorted so that I can buy more boxes of mixed cents. I would much rather have an unsorted box of pennies than an all zinc one. Wouldn't it be great if they actually did that revaluation of the cent to 5 cents? I think the estimate of 160 million collectors is extremely high. Maybe they mean 160 million hoarders/collectors and then count as a hoarder anybody that has allowed more than 37 pennies to accomeulate in a sock drawer rather than the "real hoarders" we have here on this board.
"Illigitimum non carborendum" |
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n/a
deleted
4 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 13:42:22
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quote:
Originally posted by beercritic
160,000,000 coin collectors in the US? I guess they count ANYONE who saved a State Quarter or threee of their favorite states as a collector.
And those people are collectors. How many of those people have purchased coins for more than face value? Maybe 2 million, if that.
By the way, the U.S. has never minted pennies, although they have minted cents.
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Ridewithme38
Penny Sorter Member
USA
79 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 15:24:13
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Just looking back on this post...
200,000,000,000 cents in circulation...
Most people have found its about 25% copper
soo 50,000,000,000
They estimate 160,000,000 coin collectors in the us..
soo thats 312.4 cents each...some how i don't think thats right(Concidering i have atleast 2,000 copper cents right here in front of me)
lets break that number down further..
The population of the US according to this website You must be logged in to see this link.
is 301,245,799
So theres about 166 copper cents out there for each person in america
Thats about a pound of copper for each person or 301,245,799 pounds of copper in the pockets of americans everyday!
No wonder we're having a problem with obesity!!
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RUNNING TOTAL:
2223 Copper
43 wheat
20 canadian
1 Guatemala coin?(1979)What is this made of?
and a 250gram .999 pure copper bar(Jetco USA) |
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n/a
deleted
479 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 16:59:34
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I like the tongue-in-cheek smirk that I sense behind your post, ridewithme.
I suspect that most of the "missing" pennies were taken out of circulation by the mint itself.
My hunch is that that factor accounts for more than half.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing takes paper money out of circulation when the paper is;
written upon, torn, worn out, etc.
I don't know the details of this, by I think it is fair to say that over the years, the mint has done the same thing with coins that they feel are not "up to standard"
ALSO:
I know a guy who used to give away US Cents as token gifts to poor children in third world countries, especially the Phillipines.
Also Equador and some other nations are, "dollarized"
Suffice it to say that lots of US Cents have made their way out of the country one way or another.
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Paul Craig Roberts urges people to
DUMP DOLLARS! |
Edited by - n/a on 02/24/2007 17:01:39 |
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just carl
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
601 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2007 : 10:02:29
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When the government stated there are an extimated 160 million coin collectors in the USA they did not say cent(penny) collectors. The sttaed coin collectors. They also stated they based this on the highly successful state quarters that so many individuals that never collected a coin before now collecting them. Many hundreds or maybe thousands of companies that never made a coin collecting item are now producing quarter folders for those state quarters. Also, there are numberous coin collectors that are strickly a specific denomination type collector that may only collect, say the new dollar coins, or the old dollar coins, or half dimes, three cent pieces, etc. And I'm sure just about every one knows many kids that collect coins although possibly not in a serious way but still are consided coin collectors. At this rate it should be easy to note that about half the population is a coin collector.
Although the government makes statements such as this and true or not it will further inspire many to begin collecting and/or hoarding coins. The USMint is in buisness to produce our monitary system and if no one was collecting and hoarding coins there would be a necessity to start a layoff in the Mints population. The government just couldn't do that you know so they will do anything to inspire collecting coins or taking them right back out of circulation as fast as they put them in.
As to calling them pennies or cents, pennies are used by more people than cents. We even have songs written with the word penny. Try singing Cents from Heaven. Try telling millions of kids to stop calling them pennies. Our vocabulary, our language, our speach has been developing for hundreds of years by what we want it to be and not what someone says it should be. Not long ago AIN'T was a word out parents said not to use but is now in the dictionary.
Carl |
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Interesting...
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