My first memory of collecting coins is also a great memory of a time spent with my father.

This old treasure my dad and I found in the garden that day sparked my interest in collecting coins and perhaps even learning about history.

I was about nine years old. My father was using a roto-tiller to prepare our garden for planting. I was playing around and watching the weeds and grass being turned under and mixing with the clods of dirt that were churned up by the blades on the tiller when I saw something big and round appear from the dirt. I picked it up and looked at it, it was some sort of coin, a …

Gold and silver can be good investments, there’s no doubt about that. But the problem that comes into it, especially for the novice, is that when you buy your gold or silver from these “sponsors” you generally pay a very high premium above the actual metal value of what you are purchasing. Not a wise investment method to say the least.

So the news programs and “personalities” advocate the acquisition of gold and silver while their sponsors offer to sell it to you via their easy …

US pennies minted before 1982 (and some struck during the first part of that year) are made of 95% copper. Later pennies contain only 2.5% copper.

It takes approximately 115 pennies to make 1 pound of copper. If copper is at $1.15 per pound then a copper penny will be worth one cent. Currently copper is more than 3 times that amount. This means that 1 pre 1982 penny contains more than 3 cents worth of copper!

Don’t underestimate this. You may be tempted to say ‘oh its only pennies…’

In the middle of 1982 the composition of the penny was drastically changed. Previous cents were minted from 95%

…

Obtaining old US coins is one of the very best ways to grow your silver collection. If you shop around wisely and compare you can get your silver coins very near the actual spot value. I stree “shop around and compare” because there can be huge differences in prices. If one isnt careful it would be easy to pay too much for what you get.

90%

…

Have you ever heard the expression “he doesn’t have a nickel’s worth of sense?” Believe it or not, there used to actually be “nickel cents”.

Nickel Cents were minted during a specific time in history, and the hoarding of them, along with gold and silver coins, in Civil war times led to the passing of 18 USC 486, which made private tokens illegal to use.

Nickel Cents were pennies with the Indian head symbol that were struck between the years of 1859 – 1864 that contained 88% copper and 12% nickel. They were referred to as nickels or “nicks”, before the days of the five cent nickel piece.

We often hear today of the nuisance that pennies can be. …

Private tokens were made and since there was no real regulation on the use of other coinage outside of the United States Mint, the storekeepers and businesses began accepting these bronze coins.

Until the end of the war, these coins were used and it is thought that there were over 25,000,000 of these one cent private coins minted by 1864.

The Coinage Act of 1864

The minting of private coins or tokens ended with the passing of the Coinage Act of 1864. This stopped the manufacture of one and two cent small tokens that had been being used in the …

Last year, when silver was around $18.00 per ounce, you could obtain a roll of average circulated “junk silver” 90% silver dimes …

The America the Beautiful Quarter Program started up in 2010 with the release of coins honoring the Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, Yosemite National Park in California, Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, and Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon.

The Gettysburg National Military Park Quarter

The first America the Beautiful Quarter released in 2011 is the Gettysburg National Military Park Quarter. It is number 6 in …

The thing that makes these cents interesting is their relative rarity. The lowest mintage was on the 2009-P “Presidency” Lincoln Cent at less than 130,000,000. The highest mintage among the 2009 cents was the 2009-P “Formative Years” cent at 376,000,000.

Coins with numbers like this are bound to be in short supply among collectors. And there are lots of cent collectors both new and old. I really think this is a coin to keep an eye on and try to …

Copper had become too valuable to be used for something with so little buying power as the lowly penny. In fact, as of today, it would take a little over 2.5 cents worth of copper to produce a traditional 95% copper cent. Add in the administrative and other costs involved and it goes even higher.

In order to affectively produce one cent coins without losing money a metal is needed that is as near to being worthless as possible while still being somewhat durable.

What? Our good old …