Are your old coins worth millions?
U.S. Mint presses final cent after more than 200 years
America’s last penny was minted at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, ending coin production that began in 1793 and ended on November 12.
Learn to love your coins.
This is a message from Kevin McCauley, CEO of Coinstar, the company that develops the coin cash machines you see in supermarkets.
According to the Federal Reserve, only 16% of U.S. consumers paid in cash in 2023. A 2022 Pew study found that two-fifths of consumers do not use cash at all.
Most Americans now know that the Mint will never make another penny. Some companies began reporting coin shortages even before the last penny was stamped.
President Donald Trump has ordered the Treasury Department to stop minting pennies because the cost of producing them exceeds their value. (Interestingly, the same is true for nickel.)
Many Americans consider nickels and pennies to be more of a nuisance than currency. According to the Federal Reserve, the typical household holds between $60 and $90 in abandoned coins, the equivalent of one or two pint-sized beer mugs. Americans throw away millions of dollars in coins every year, literally treating them like trash.
Why do we treat coins like garbage?
McCauley believes we need to change the way we think about coins.
Of course, coins have monetary value. Coinstar converts $3 billion in coins into usable cash each year, one coin jar at a time. The average bottle gives you $58 in purchasing power.
Most of us don’t know how much our coins are worth. So when you go to a coin exchange kiosk (or bank or credit union), you may be pleasantly surprised.
“People underestimate the value of their bottles by about half,” McCauley told USA TODAY earlier this year. “It’s a great and fun experience. People have a sense that they’ve found money.”
The Fed found that certain groups of Americans (low-income households and those 55 and older) still use large amounts of cash, as do those who prefer to shop in person.
Coins are currency, not clutter
Like the rest of us, McCauley believes it’s time for a paradigm shift. Don’t think of coins as clutter. Think of it as recyclable.
“They’re metal,” he said, in case we needed a reminder. “And they have a long and useful lifespan.”
Although that number has declined, the Treasury Department still mints more than 5 billion coins annually, according to the journal CoinNews.
McCauley said, “They’re just natural resources that come out of the earth. Pennies have copper-plated zinc, nickels and dimes, and quarters have copper-nickel alloys.”
His argument is that if Americans were serious about collecting unused coins and “recycling” them into the monetary system, the Mint wouldn’t need to create so many new coins.
Macquarie certainly has a vested interest. His company collects a small amount of coins deposited by consumers.
“If you go to your bank or credit union, there’s no fee,” said Kimberly Palmer, a personal finance expert at NerdWallet. NerdWallet and Bankrate both offer tip sheets for converting coins into cash. Bankrate reports that while most banks will accept the account holder’s coins for free, some, but not all, may require you to roll the coins yourself.
Penny shortages are hurting retailers and banks across the U.S.
Banks and businesses across the country have struggled to find pennies since President Trump halted production earlier this year.
straight arrow news
McCauley points out that Coinstar typically waives fees if depositors choose to exchange coins for retail gift cards rather than cash.
He’s not alone in predicting the future of pennies, nickels, and their more profitable cousins.
“The adoption of mobile payments and contactless credit cards is much slower than in Europe and parts of Asia,” said Ted Rothman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.
The pandemic has been a timely reminder of how dependent we are on cash. Amid global lockdowns, consumers and business owners continued to use coins, creating a physical coin shortage.
“It’s like the whole system has frozen,” Rothman said.
Coin obsolescence: Where will it end?
After all, abolishing the penny creates new problems. The New York Times reported that as America loses its penny, it will soon be awash in nickels.
The government loses almost 3 cents for every penny minted. For nickels, that’s a loss of almost 9 cents. The more nickel there is, the greater the loss.
President Donald Trump tells Treasury Department to end penny revenue
President Donald Trump has directed the Treasury Department to halt production of pennies, citing production costs.
America could kill both the penny and the nickel, two of the losers on its currency list.
But without pennies or nickels, how would consumers pay their 15-cent tabs?
All prices can be rounded to the nearest 10 cents. But what about that quarter?
and so on.
Are your old coins worth millions?
Do you have a million dollars worth of old pennies? Experts say that’s highly unlikely.
You may have seen one of the many headlines about precious pennies in circulation. It says, “You may have $124 million worth of Lincoln Wheat Pennies at home.” But the reality is that most pennies are worth a penny, or sometimes more.
The reality doesn’t live up to the hype, says one expert.
“There’s a million-dollar penny, but there’s no $100 million penny,” said Don Perlman, a spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG), a nonprofit organization made up of many of the country’s rare coin experts. “Only a few 1909-1958 Lincoln cents (‘wheat pennies’) with a wheat stalk design on the reverse have sold for more than $1 million. ”
The most valuable U.S. coin in history is a $20 gold coin, the 1933 “Double Eagle” coin, which sold for $18.9 million at auction in 2021. The rarest but most valuable pennies that may still be in circulation are the 1943 Lincoln Wheat Copper Pennies, some of which were accidentally produced because the U.S. Mint was supposed to use zinc to conserve copper for World War II, said John Feigenbaum, publisher of the Rare Coin Price Guide. gray sheet.
In rare cases, some 1943 pennies have sold for $1 million, while others sold for more than $200,000 at auction in 2019.
Feigenbaum said a 1943 Lincoln wheat penny could be worth between $100,000 and $250,000, depending on its condition.
But the chance of winning a nearly priceless penny is “like saying your lottery ticket could be worth $100,000. Of course, anything is possible, right? But it’s unlikely,” said Feigenbaum, who is also PNG’s executive director.
How much is a wheat penny worth?
The so-called “wheat penny” got its name from the wheat stalks surrounding the words “1 cent” on the reverse side of the coin. These were manufactured from 1909 to 1958. The wheat stalks were then cut back and the penny began to display an engraving of the Lincoln Memorial.
Most Lincoln Wheat Pennies are not super precious and are worth a few cents more than a penny. However, depending on its condition and when it was minted, it can cost up to several hundred dollars. Certain vintages, especially those with minting errors, can be worth thousands. NGC’s price guide can be found here.
But when you see a headline about the ultra-precious “Lincoln Wheat Penny,” your imagination stretches. Feigenbaum said the headline was likely created by artificial intelligence to drive traffic to the website.
“It’s inconceivable that these coins are in people’s pocket change,” he says.
Still, because of the increased interest online, “people are flooding coin shops with people who believe they have something rare but actually don’t,” Feigenbaum said.
The increased interest in the coin has led to overvalued coins being sold on eBay and Etsy. Counterfeit Lincoln wheat pennies made in China are on sale.
“If you’ve seen these coins…someone is being used from time to time,” Feigenbaum said.
What if I have pennies or other coins that I think have value?
Feigenbaum said the most valuable coins are typically collected and openly “sold and resold,” but people sometimes inherit well-preserved stashes of coins or buy some at estate sales. Some tips:
- Please read carefully about the coin. There are apps you can use to verify your coins, but they are not always accurate. However, the value of the coins can be found in “The 2026 Red Book: A Guide Book of United States Coins”. Available in bookstores and online at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. “It answers all kinds of questions, like, ‘How much should I pay to collect Lincoln cents?'” said Feigenbaum, one of the book’s editors. “You’ll see in that book that there’s no such thing as a million dollars and cents.”
- Get your coins evaluated. As with jewelry, you can have your coin’s value certified by several services, including CAC, Numismatic Guaranty Company, and Professional Coin Grading Service.
