Thoughts about coins

[dagibbs]

So after getting my change from lunch, I was looking at the toonies I'd gotten. Looked at a couple more -- 3 of the 4 were dated 1996. So, I went through my change jar, and pulled out all the toonies and looked at the dates: 1996 - 12, 2000 - 2, 2003 - 1, 2005 - 2, 2006 - 1. So, I wondered why all the 1996? First thought, which was correct, they must have introduced the toonie in 1996 so a lot were introduced into circulation at that point.

Then, I started to wonder -- I'd collected pennies as a kid (who doesn't?), and what I thought was a normal (not in the statistical meaning, though it may match that as well, or more likely, just one half of a normal distrubution) distribution was that coins from current and recent years were most common and easy to find, and the farther back you went, the less likely you were to find a coin of a particular year. I was doing this around 1977 I'd guess, and anything from the 70s and late 60s were pretty easy to find. Early 60s happened occasionally, and I'd filled in all of them; as well as some of the 50s, I had couple from the 40s, one 30s and one 1911 US penny. (The rest were Canadian -- didn't collect US, except 1911 was so old I hung on to it.) How long would it take from the introduction of the toonie until it reached this sort of distribution, where the introduction in 1996 no longer predominated? Or would it? Would the circulation/non-circulation effect change things? By this, I mean the tendency for people to not bother carrying around pennies but to stick them in a jar, but to bother spending toonies? (Cause 50 pennies in a jar is almost no money, but 50 toonies in a jar is $100 and that's (still) real money, that you can buy useful things with.) And even further thoughts -- would the toonie even be around that long? Or would electronic cash, credit, or some other method replace the use of cash (and, especially coins) before it could get to this point.

What is the actual distrubution for a long-time circulated coin? And, of course, it would depend on issue rate, and special issues and stuff. For instance, back to pennies, I seem to remember 1967 coins were more common than 1966 or 1968; but that was the centennial year coins, so maybe it's just that more were issued for the celebration?

18 toonies -- that's $36. I wonder what I should buy with them.

Comments

[gabriel-le.livejournal.com]

pennies before a certain year (forgot which) have a higher copper content than the 1cent marking indicates.

So a lot of people collect them for their metallic value, not necessarily their collectible or monetary value.

To continue the coin geeking. =D

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember the change in the pennies -- they got thinner and lighter. I had heard rumours of people holding them for the copper content, but it had never really made much sense to me. It struck me as too difficult to get enough bulk together to be worth the bother of re-smelting the metal.

[shyska.livejournal.com]

I don't think the 1996 toonies will be less plentiful than more recent years.
Though in 50 years, who knows?