S mint

[penny pretty]

I save all S mint memorial coppers anyway, but it just dawned on me to few I find as opposed to common wheats. Today after handsorting $20 CWRs I found two S mints,12 common wheats, and two georges. Are S mint m emorials more rare than wheats?

[misteroman]

yup, way rarer. Figure they only made them for 6 or 7 yrs and the mintages weren't that high at all

[willy13]

also depends on location, much easier to find them if you are on the west coast.

[scyther]

Are they worth anything? I haven't been saving most of mine...

[henrysmedford]

Last year Franklin was pulling S mint for a few months and here in Medford the 1974-S is the hardest to find and then the 1968-S is. The Funny thing when Franklin stops something you can not get him to start it back up. Also the hardest post 1940 cent for us to find is 1954 we have found more IH cent than 1954 see -- http://www.realcent.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5364&hilit=+1954

[jacer333]

I pulled my S-mints when I first started sorting. Once I got about $25 worth of them piled up, I got tired of messing with them, so now I just throw them in with the other coppers. They may be rarer than wheats, but there just isn't any demand as hardly anyone really seeks to collect them.

[penny pretty]

thanks! figured they were rare, and I find few enough that saving them wont be a hassle!

[bookshelf]

I throw my S-mint coppers in with the general bunch when sorting. When I get around to rolling and wrapping the coppers for storage, I separate out the S-mint ones for some reason. B)

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

They are fairly scarce. I live about 40 miles from the SF mint so they are a little more plentiful here. Just to satisfy my curiosity I sorted a bag of copper for S mints and had another member who had bought a bag from me sort his. We ended up with 5-7% S mints out of the cents already sorted for copper. That would equate to about 1% of the pennies in circulation here before sorting. If someone were hand sorting I think it would be worthwhile to separate the S mints, but for those of us that bulk sort it is not worth the time to go back and hand sort the copper for S mint cents. I think the percentages of S mints gets even lower the further east you go.

[GGerrands]

I started saving out the 68-74 S mints based on the inspiration of that photo above, but I keep mine all lumped together in a "save to the side bucket." So far, S mints are outnumbering P & D 1959's by a *smidge*.

[pennypanner]

I seperat the S mints from the other copper and keep them. The collectors of the future may have a hard time finding them.

[Night Hawk]

Don't forget to keep an eye out for the 69-S double die and the 70-S small date.

[John Reich]

I live in the East and handsort. I save all my "S" mints from 68 to 74. I find 5 to 10 per box--pretty much the same number of wheats I find. Out here, the 74-S is definitely the most common. I remember at the time that the 74-S coins were mixed in bags with Denver and Philly coins and distributed all over the country--to keep them from being "hoarded". That may explain why so few turn up in Oregon.

[Sheba]

I find that the 1969S here in the Midwest is by far the most common 'S' from 1968 to 1974. Don't find a lot of 's' mints, but I do keep them seperate. If they never achieve any 'special' value, they are still copper! All 's' mint wheaties are kept seperate...even the common ones are worth more than just copper value, I think.

I've never found any of the really rare key date wheaties like the 1909 s-VDB or the 1914d or the very early 's' mints through 1916 or 1931s, but the one I am looking for and can't seem ever to find (making it as difficult as the rare wheaties for me) is a simple 1939D. Why is that one so hard to find for this old 'hand sorter'? (I'm putting a complete book 'to date' together of all the pennies I find and except for a few old or rare dates, have it filled complete from about 1917 on, and that doggone 1939 D.

Oh well. I guess I'll find it sometime!

BTW, I'm a hand sorter so haven't gone through huge quantities like some of you folks do with those 'Rydales'

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

BTW, I'm a hand sorter so haven't gone through huge quantities like some of you folks do with those 'Rydales'

Hey, some of us used to through huge quantities even pre-Rydale.. but now we can do it a lot faster.

[penny pretty]

Im a handsorter also, and I have one thing to say about you rootin tootin, copper lootin, machine feinds....