This bears out over time. The commission found that cents were being issued and used effectively only once. That is, the cashier would pay them out and then the consumer would not use them afterward, keeping them in jars (let's say) before later aggregating them and exchanging them at the bank (or at CoinStar machines today). They reasoned that it wasn't worth producing the coin now that this is what they had become. (By contrast a cent in 1909, when the Lincoln cent debuted, had the purchasing power of 25¢ today which you could also take to mean that the quarter is now our "penny").
Evidence of this lack of use comes by me all the time. I work with money so I see hundreds of coins of each denomination every week. Cents generally show little wear at all after 1964 and even then I have never seen a worn out Memorial Cent (1959-2008) despite the fact that its oldest coins are now over fifty years old. By contrast I have seen many worn out Wheat Cents (1909-1958) from dates prior to 1934. The years after saw increased production and I'm assuming saving prompted by the changeover to the Memorial reverse so it's harder to gauge them. It's sad to see all these coins basically go unused but as a collector I'm glad they still are as they have provided the oldest coins I've ever found from circulation (three Indian Head Cents dated 1906, 1900, and 1895 respectively). It sucks that inflation is so insidious. It has taken its toll on our coins.
The nickel, like the cent, suffers from a lack of use but it didn't become apparent until later. From the coins I see, it appears that regular circulation of nickels ended around the same time. Usually dates from 1971 on don't show much evidence of circulation despite coins that age being almost forty years old. Since the Jefferson design remained unchanged from 1938-2003, and since those early dated ones can still be found, you can see when circulation wear stopped accumulating with regularity. Coins from the late 1930s and 1940s all show significant wear and ones from the 1950s show modest wear but I've never seen a Jefferson nickel worn to a slick. Nickels last about forty years in constant circulation and that would put 1938 at 1978 which is already past the time they stopped being used with regularity. The few Buffalo nickels I've seen tended to be worn nearly flat.
The fate of the dime took a bit longer. While I have a vague memory of a 5¢ gum ball machine in ShopRite in the early 1980s, I remember 10¢ machines up until the mid-1990s. Based on circulation wear, I would say dimes stopped circulating regularly in 1982. Nowadays, they easily rest in jars until exchanged. Dimes, however, are less fun to collect because they lost their silver content in 1964 meaning that the oldest coins you are likely to find are dated 1965. Yes, a silver dime will show up rarely but they are effectively "extinct in the wild".
Quarters are supposedly still the workhorse denomination of our coins. And while vending machines still happily take them, I think their days in circulation have also ended. The Statehood Quarters were introduced in 1999 and the program ended with the U.S. Territories in 2009. I still see the oldest ones in circulation and after ten years, the 1999 ones show little, if any, wear on them. Quarters, like dimes and nickels, have about a forty year circulation lifetime and like the nickels, I have never seen a worn-out quarter (or dime for that matter). The cupro-nickel clad coins introduced in 1965 never got to circulate regularly long enough for this to happen. Based on what I see at work, it appears quarters lost their ability to circulate around 1989. Even the last eagle reverse ones from the mid-1990s show virtually no signs of wear despite having been around and rejected over the favored new statehood releases for the past fifteen years or so. Coins that should be Fine/Very Fine or so by now are still Extremely Fine or better.
Half Dollars and Dollar coins don't circulate except anomalously so they can't even be figured into this ramble.
Even though it would hurt me as a collector (I only need four more dates to have every year of the Lincoln cent represented and only five more dates and mintmarks to have every Jefferson nickel ever issued), it does seem that if we must accept this inflation [I seriously don't know why it can't be halted and reversed so that these coins can get their value back], then it is time to eliminate the cent, nickel, and dime. And based on the purchasing power of money in 1913 (the earliest the CPI calculators go), we should also abolish the $1, $2, $5, and $10 bills and replace them with coins since the $1 of 1913 had the purchasing power of about $25 today. Five and ten dollar coins would circulate whereas nickels and dimes do not. A large wonton soup container full of cents, nickels, and dimes amounts to about $50. That's a significant sum, but it takes a lot of inconvenient coins to reach that amount but it would only take five to ten $5 and $10 coins to equal the same amount. That same container full of $1, $5, and $10 coins would be like $5000. No one could afford to do that so they'd be spent instead...doing what coins are supposed to be doing which is circulate. I don't see that happening though.
Back to the 2010 cent. I've had a year to digest its design. It looks like this to those who haven't seen it yet:
But really, that's it. I like that the denomination is still spelled out. In early proposed designs, 1¢ was shown. I'm glad the mint still favors literacy although it fails mightily with the new Presidential Dollars (and current Sacagawea Dollars) showing $1 on the coin which makes it look cheap in my opinion. [Now if only we could get our WALK/DON'T WALK signs back] ONE DOLLAR is more dignified. The only numerical denomination I ever accepted was 2½ DOLLARS because the coin was dime-sized leaving insufficient space to write it out. I'm also glad the denomination was raised on the banner rather than incused. I'm surprised no one has complained saying that the statement of value would wear off in time. It would, if the coin circulated; but since it doesn't, it's not an issue. I'm not even sure modern cents can wear down. The layer of copper is microscopically thin and once it's gone, the zinc core, which deteriorates rapidly, gets exposed. I'm carrying one of these new cents in my pocket every day. If it doesn't corrode from wear, I'll post what a circulated Shield Cent looks like in the coming years.
Another important change on the new cents was the restoration of Lincoln's portrait on the obverse. The design was restored back in 1969 and as before was allowed to deteriorate into a simplified portrait over time (which may not be coincidentally related to the loss of the position of Chief Engraver back in 1992). This has plagued all our modern coins. Check out a well-preserved nickel, dime, and quarter from prior to 1977 and compare it to one made in the mid-1990s or later. The portraits all got "spaghetti hair" and became considerably flattened. Originally they had this sculpted look and feel. They had both life and depth to them. But by the 1990s, they had become cartoony-looking and were only minimally raised from the coin's surface (this can be seen easily on half dollars. Compare one from 1971 to one made in 1988 to one made in 2000 or later). While the Lincoln design still seems flat, the life has been restored to it and it's wonderful to behold. [The new National Park Quarters have a restored Washington portrait as well which looks better than before but could use more depth as its flatness hides subtleties in the design]
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| The hair is where the restoration is most evident |
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