DELIBERATELY CIRCULATED: TWELVE YEARS LATER...

      Oh man, I'm starting to feel bad for my 2007 digital camera. Like, it wants to die: you can sense it nevertheless I need its outdated husk to capture pictures of my pocket coins because none of my other cameras have ever quite been able to do it the way I need it done. So...once again, I've charged its battery and returned it to life like the Vorlon do with Sebastian to serve my need

     I (again) could not quite capture the magic of my 2015 photos and even my common desktop setup wasn't really working for me so I handheld the camera instead of relying on the tripod and taking pictures when the lighting came as close as it could to what I sought. Thankfully, at 1/200th of a second per shot, image blur isn't really an issue

     So onward with the only thing I keep this blog alive for (just like my 2007 camera!) which reminds me, I really am overdue for finishing up the America the Beautiful Quarter mintages and how they compared to the Statehood series which preceded it!

 

2007 Silver American Eagle: about 14-15 years wear

     As it has been, the rim of this coin I received in that year as a subscription benefit to Numismatic News remains sharp despite all the bruising it gets in my overfilled coin purse (the 2008 one I got I tossed into a cardboard box and for a couple years, it became very colorfully toned on both sides; I never received the 2009 one because the price of silver had risen to the point where it would've cost the newspaper more than the value of the subscription to honor the benefit). Since my bank (for whatever dumb reason) will not get dollar coins for its customers anymore, I've been stuck carrying a bunch of quarters in their stead so the coins don't really get to jingle around as much anymore. They're still grinding down (rather than becoming attractively worn like actual circulated coins of yesteryear), but I assume the rate has slowed.

     The lettering for E PLURIBUS UNUM seems to be entirely gone now and the open part of the field on the obverse has taken some toll on IN GOD WE TRUST and on the bottoms of the letters of the T & Y of LIBERTY. There's still a very noticeable ring of protected area along the reverse's lettering.

1978-D Eisenhower Dollar: about 13 years wear

      Not much to say about the Ike dollar. Its wear continues apace though it has caused the mintmark to become illegible again because the wear isn't from smooth rubbing but from metal on metal grinding and scratching. But it's proving a tough coin. All these years in my coin purse and the majority of its details are still intact.

1978 Kennedy Half Dollar: about 11-12 years wear

      Kennedy's hair and ear are showing noticeable wear. The arrows, olive branch, and E PLURIBUS UNUM banner held by the eagle on the reverse have become less distinct while the eagle's head is now smooth and has blended with the top of the Union shield. The wing feathers are starting to blur together.

1999-P Susan B. Anthony Dollar: about 15-16 years wear

      This SBA dollar is among my longest-held coins for this patience project and is getting very close to being halfway through its circulation lifetime of 40 years. The bottoms of the digits in 1999 are particularly affected now and the eagle on the reverse continues to lose detail. Some protected areas (like the hair by Anthony's ear and areas around the eagle) persist.

1999-P New Jersey State Quarter: about 15 years wear

      Not much to say as its wear continues but the reverse of Washington Crossing the Delaware is becoming increasingly like a silhouette.

2017-P New Jersey America the Beautiful Quarter: 7½ years wear

      Washington's hairlines are already nearly gone as the restoration of his portrait for this series made them particularly delicate in the effigy's low relief. The mother and boy's faces on the reverse are becoming mushier.

2005-P Jefferson Nickel [first issue]: about 15-16 years wear

 

2005-P Jefferson Nickel [second issue]: about 15-16 years wear

 

     The Westward Journey nickels of 2005 continue to not show any obvious wear to Jefferson's portrait. It's there and it's happening but it remains difficult to see both in photographs and real life. The Buffalo of the first reverse gets mushier and mushier looking. Its horn remains prominent despite the legs of the animal blending into the grassy patch it stands on. The wording of OCEAN IN VIEW! O! THE JOY! on the commemorative dinnerplate reverse grows less distinct with only hints of the exclamation points remaining. The rough-looking mountainside the wording was placed upon has noticeably smoothed.

2001-P Jefferson Nickel: about 15-16 years wear

     My accidental addition to this collection is showing a lot more gouge marks on the obverse while the FIVE CENTS on the reverse continues to fade away.

2009-P Jefferson Nickel: about 13 years wear

      Jefferson looks like he's been taking quite a few hits in the kisser while the FIVE CENTS denomination is holding up considerably better than it has been on the 2001 coin.

1974-S Lincoln Cent: about 15-16 years wear

     Everything on this coin looks like a nicked mess now. I feel bad for the coin. I have Lincoln cents from the teens and twenties which have worn down to Good/Very Good rather handsomely (and with their mintmarks still very legible) but this coin just looks like it's been tossed around in a rock tumbler rather than jingling around in a coin purse. The mintmark is just a blob, the date & LIBERTY & E PLURIBUS UNUM are becoming indistinct. A few protected areas persist and have retained a pale blue color. The Lincoln Memorial is now increasingly just a shape and the mini-Lincoln within, his li'l legs, are no longer protected and may soon blend in with the columns of the memorial.

2010 Lincoln Cent: 15 years wear

      With the Mint announcing it will no longer be producing cents as soon as its store of blanks have been used up (predicted to be early in 2026), I'm left wondering if we will be making a go of recycling the many many billions of Lincoln cents that have been minted since 1959 or if they will rapidly disappear from circulation because businesses will stop ordering them from local banks? If it's more immediately the latter, than this 2010 cent which I've been carrying around since April of that year (pretty much as soon as they had become available) will now represent pretty much the maximum wear any such Shield Cent could've ever attained before withdrawal from circulation. I'm going to keep carrying it regardless but its "natural" wear will soon become fantasy wear when that day comes (and despite the cent being relatively worthless since the 1960s, I'll still miss the coin. It was my, and I'm sure every collector's, first love and to this day remains the only coin that you can still reliably get 80+ year old coins from a roll and even occasionally, 100+ year old coins - I got a 1918 just the other week. And while you can still get nickels from the 1940s & '50s and occasionally the late 1930s, it's just not the same thrill and I imagine the nickel's days are numbered too given the costs associated with producing one of them so soon all our oldest coins will be 1965)

     Anyway, the metal on metal scraping this coin receives has not been kind to its devices. All the lettering and numbering on the coin is difficult to make out. The denomination still stands out but it does appear to be on the verge of merging with the banner it's within. We'll just have to see what another two years of coin purse circulation will do to it!

2009-I Lincoln Cent: about 13 years wear

  

2009-II Lincoln Cent: about 13 years wear

2009-III Lincoln Cent: about 13 years wear

2009-IV Lincoln Cent: about 13 years wear

     The Bicentennial of Lincoln's Birth series of cents is also closing in on their maximum wear in reality (though this particular set will need to go 17 years before reaching that point as I started circulating them late). The effects of an ultrathin plating of copper atop a core of far more volatile zinc is showing, though. Like their Shield counterpart, nearly every design's lettering is not holding up well now that the more protective layer of copper has worn away. I do like, though, how that zinc exposure makes it easier to photograph the wear on the coins but the composition of cents since 1982 has not proven wise.

      And like with the Shield cent, I fully intend to continue circulating these coins until they become slicks (or I die...not like any of know what Fate has in store for us) even after cents have ceased to circulate in American commerce.

Angel Token: 12 years wear

      Maybe I should start photographing both sides of this token despite them having the same design because it's not like they aren't distinct. One side of the token was against the street I had found it lying on and it surely had been run over at least once given the gouge damage on the angel's stage left wing but I continue to show this token's good side when making these presentations. Curiously it shows the least amount of gouging of all my collection. Whatever its composition is, it sure does resist the scrapes and grinds its brethren cannot. I do love the colorful effects around the rays where the protected areas are becoming less so as the design flattens (and the now gray alien looking face of the angel). If only all my coins had worn so smoothly...

     So long as Blogger remains, see y'all again in two years! 

DELIBERATELY CIRCULATED: TEN YEARS LATER...

 Once again, I've charged the battery to my 2007 model digital camera to document the current state of gouges, rubbing, and smearing of the designs of various coins I've been carrying in my pocket (in some cases) since 2007 (and in more cases, later than that - the most recent addition, a 2017 New Jersey "America the Beautiful" quarter dollar, started on October 2017)

I don't know if this digital camera will survive to 2025 for the next documenting. It was quite wonky this time like bit rot had begun setting into its circuit boards or something. I'll miss the camera when it goes, especially for this project, as it has the ability to focus much closer in macro mode than my other cameras.

I tried something different with this set of photos and the results look fairly good. I'll still never recapture that 2015 magic but this is a start to something I may use consistently. I put the coin off to the right of the light source and used my hand to shade the coin that it would be lit more by ambient light than directly (which cut out both harsh shadows and overly lit areas where the light reflected into my camera) and photographed it with a longer shutter speed

The largest coins are propped up with a dime but everything from the Susan B. Anthony dollar to the angel token I was able to photograph flat for the first time.

I did, however, forget to adjust the white balance. While this didn't affect the cupronickel coins all that much, it didn't make the cents look really off so I maximally warmed the image to make those coins look more coppery so if they look really off to your non-colorblind eyes, that's why. But they look okay to me so I went with it rather than do a reshoot with a camera increasingly unwilling to cooperate with my commands.

And yes, I'm aware I still have not finished comparing the ATB quarter mintages to those of the Statehood quarter mintages. I still might get around to that.

Might...

Anyway, as always, click on the images to enlarge

2007 Silver American Eagle: about 12-13 years wear

 The rim of this coin is still sharp. I guess it doesn't face circulation pressure in my coin purse set-up. The main parts of the design all show heavy wear now with the top part of the date no longer protected by its recessed area. The E PLURIBUS UNUM on the ribbon in the eagle's mouth is almost entirely gone. The bright spots in all the coin photographs show the remaining protected areas which, for this coin, is still largely the lettering along both sides' edges.

1978-D Eisenhower Dollar: about 11 years wear

1978 Kennedy Half Dollar: about 9-10 years wear

The relief of Kennedy's head at this point in the series (1964-1987) is very high so it's almost impossible to photograph it without harsh shadows but this coin is already more worn than almost every Kennedy half dollar I've ever handled. I only a regular customer back in 2000 who kept a 1964 Kennedy in pocket for many years (for all I know, since 1964) that he'd take out when getting change to pay for his coffee. It had gotten so worn I thought at first it was an old Barber half until I got a better look at it and realized it was indeed a Kennedy half dollar in PO-1 - FAIR-2 condition! If I live long enough, maybe this coin will suffer the same fate :-)

1999-P Susan B. Anthony Dollar: about 13-14 years wear

The obverse is still pock-marked with gouges from all the other coins I carry but the overall design of one of the earliest members of this deliberately circulated club is now about one-third of its way through its expected circulation lifetime of 40 years. I'll be an old man if I'm still carrying this coin until then!

1999-P New Jersey State Quarter: about 13 years wear

Washington's spaghetti hairlines persist but are getting noticeably weaker and the reverse design is well on its way to becoming a silhouette

2017-P New Jersey America the Beautiful Quarter: 5½ years wear

Washington's bust is so flat in this version of his design that his hairlines are already noticeably weaker despite a much shorter time in my coin purse compared to his Statehood counterpart. Either way, much of the reverse design is still sharp but then this coin isn't much more worn than the rest of these coins were when I first photographed them in 2013 for this project

2005-P Jefferson Nickel [first issue]: about 13-14 years wear

2005-P Jefferson Nickel [second issue]: about 13-14 years wear

Both of these Westward Journey nickels are just moving along in their circulation. The lettering for the Ocean in View nickel is getting difficult to read (and not just because I need glasses now!). I'm still waiting for the Jefferson heads to show noticeable circulation. It's very hard to see it with this design.

2001-P Jefferson Nickel: about 13-14 years wear

This coin takes a beating on the reverse area with FIVE CENTS and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. It's nearly smoothed out for parts of it and overall, as evidenced by the bright spots in the images, running out of protected areas as the design gets worn down.

2009-P Jefferson Nickel: about 11 years wear

1974-S Lincoln Cent: about 13-14 years wear

I still like that the protected areas have this subtle blue color to them. Overall, Lincoln has taken a beating. The Memorial on the reverse is nearly a silhouette and even the mini-Lincoln within it is no longer protected, showing wear on his li'l legs

2010 Lincoln Cent: 13 years wear

 

You can really see how good the restoration of Lincoln's portrait was for the 2010 issue when you compare it to the 2009 issues. His bust is like proper sculpture whereas the bicentennial issues reveal all the cheats the Mint did to his design make it, I guess, easier and cheaper to strike. I know it only lasted for the 2010 issue though. As soon as 2011 you can see changes made to the design ostensibly so that it would strike up better but for one year we got this glorious restoration. The reverse shows what protected areas remain, showing up rather golden for the cents

 

2009-I Lincoln Cent: about 11 years wear

The protected areas on the reverse make it look like a log cabin at sunrise or sunset :-) But the protected areas on the obverse of this series of four coins make the Lincoln design look cheap.

2009-II Lincoln Cent: about 11 years wear

2009-III Lincoln Cent: about 11 years wear

2009-IV Lincoln Cent: about 11 years wear

Whereas the protected areas on the log cabin design made the image look like a sunset, the protected areas around the unfinished Capitol building make it look like it's on fire :-)

angel token: 10 years wear

Trying to get rid of those caption boxes from accidentally deleted pictures is proving more trouble than it's worth so I'm just letting them be. The white lines on some of the photos are from misalignments when I merged the obverse and reverse photos that I didn't see until posting them here. I'm not fixing them now, however distracting they are to me...

See y'all in two years!

DELIBERATELY CIRCULATED: EIGHT YEARS LATER...

      Once again, I've taken my old, dusty-lensed digital camera out of retirement to capture the state of the coins I've been carrying in my pocket, some as far back as 2007 (and one as recently as 2017). I've been enjoying this journey, this patience project of mine, even though the circulation on these coins is decidedly unnatural-looking

     As I've speculated before, metal-on-metal rubbing seems to produce a different result than on coins which have naturally circulated (presumably from hand to hand and the quick sliding of a coin out of a till and the brief (but more gentle) rub received from being in pockets before getting spent once more. The result is a mushier appearance and since the smaller coins sometimes rotate to be edge-on with the larger coins, a bunch of pock marks are also noticed

     But without further ado, this is what my pocket coins look like as of May 2021. I hardly write on this blog anymore so finding the previous entry to this series should not be difficult. I don't think I need to link to it this time...

(click on photos to enlarge)

2007 Silver American Eagle: about 10-11 years wear

     The remnants of E PLURIBUS UNUM are just hanging on by a thread but the rims of this coin remain strong so the outer edges of the lettering, especially on the reverse, are in no danger of wear yet

1978-D Eisenhower Dollar: about 9 years wear

1978 Kennedy Half Dollar: 7-8 years wear

     I've noticed the wear on the larger coins tends to be much smoother than the wear on the smaller coins which have the aforementioned pock marks and often appear to be more mushed than smoothed by their artificial circulation and I'm not sure why that should be...

1999-P Susan B. Anthony Dollar: 11-12 years wear

     Poor Susie's face looks really beat up! Hopefully it'll smooth out over time rather than become even more exaggerated...

1999-P New Jersey State Quarter: about 11 years wear

     The hairlines on Washington are starting to blend and the reverse image is ever more silhouette-ish :-)

2017-P New Jersey America the Beautiful Quarter: 3½ years wear

     Washington here looks even worse than Susie B! Still kinda early, though, to get a sense of wear patterns. I mean, a bunch of my coins when I first started this had been circulating for almost 6 years before I first photographed them and they still looked pretty new

2005-P Jefferson Nickel [first issue]: 11-12 years wear

     The buffalo has gotten noticeably smoother but the horn is still plainly visible. I wonder how many years the real Buffalo Nickels had to circulate on average before that happened?

2005-P Jefferson Nickel [second issue]: 11-12 years wear

     Still waiting for the reverse image to smooth away the lettering...

2001-P Jefferson Nickel: 11-12 years wear

     Jefferson's got stubble he's been nicked so much!

2009-P Jefferson Nickel: about 9 years wear

     The steps of Monticello are disappearing and the obverse looks like I've been hacking at it with a pin

1974-S Lincoln Cent: 11-12 years wear

     The mintmark is completely unreadable which sucks but I like that the protected areas have this bluish patina to them. The wear on the memorial is enough now that the legs of the Lincoln statue within are taking wear. This coin is already more worn than any Memorial Cent I've ever encountered in circulation

2010 Lincoln Cent: 11 years wear

     I wonder how much longer the date will be readable? And I do like that the points of wear are clearly visible. I'm still waiting for ONE CENT to become obliterated but that's still gotta be like a decade off...

2009 Lincoln Cent [first issue]: about 9 years wear

2009 Lincoln Cent [second issue]: about 9 years wear

2009 Lincoln Cent [third issue]: about 9 years wear

2009 Lincoln Cent [fourth issue]: about 9 years wear

     As with the 2010 cent from before, you can clearly see the points of heavy wear and where the protected areas still are by color alone. The unfinished Capitol is well on its way to becoming a silhouette

Angel token: 8 years wear

     Once again, if I'm still alive and this website still exists (and ideally I'm still able to use the same camera for consistency's sake), I'll post updated photographs two years hence. I hope someone besides me is enjoying this bullshit I do