Okay the 1980s+ probably weren't needed but in the times of euro coinage i though it only fair to add them.

Feel free to add a brief post (or not so brief post) on what you found/spent and where, and more importantly if you spent it, why!

This also has a lot to do with the age of the collector so maybe you should add that to the poll as well....

Well the oldest i ever came across was a 1930s George V .500 silver florin. I forget the exact date of the coin but from memory i was sent to the shop with it by my mother to buy a bottle of milk in about 1992. So bottle of milk she got. I didn't want to spend it but it wasn't mine and i didn't have another 10p piece anywhere on me to be able to save it.

I managed to find one eventually about an hour later and i went back to the little Post Office at the end of the street for the coin but it had already gone by then. Thus bang went my only brush with a silver coin in circulation, and the only time i ever saw a George V coin.

Other than that the oldest coins i found regularly were 1947 florins which were demonetised in 1993.

Which means the oldest coins i get now are 1971 and since they were issued in the billions and you get half a dozen a day it's hardly worth the bother to check change anymore.

Well yeah there's that too. I'd give anything to be 20 years older so i would have had the chance to find silver in circulation. I spent most of my earliest days in collecting (1990-1993) looking for silver in change, but unfortunately the early 1980s had seen most of it disappear when the bullion rates went up. Thus it was worse than searching for a needle in a haystack.

I still look through change now hoping to find some foreign coins hoping they'll be silver. All i seem to get (and it rare these days) is Lincoln cents and the odd euro, which i either throw in a box somewhere and forget about or do my best to try and conceal them in a pile of pennies somewhere and get shut of.

I think if i was in the US i would have been looking through Half dollar rolls every week scouring every one i could lay my hands on looking for the silver. Silver is the most wonderful thing. I usually have to buy junk quality US coins off of ebay for a premium. You know like double the silver price. £4/£5 a kennedy half. Mucho fun...

Oldest coin I found in circ was a 1909 Barber quarter, grade About Good and was BLACK, once again found it working as a teller at the bank.

Dan

Check that last answer, I also found a 1904 Barber quarter at the bank, AG-G a nice worn coin.

Dan

1895 v nickel.. worn down to nothing but in circulation nontheless

Oldest I've found was a 1914 Penny. Nothing exciting :*(

A Lincoln 1 cent in the 19-teens. I do not remember what year exactly.

Okay, I was born about three days after dirt was invented, and when I was about 8 or 9 years of age, I received an Indian Head Cent (U.S.) from the 1880's in change at a local store

Canadian: 1939 1c
US: 1914 1c

The fact that Canadian 1c and 5c changed size in 1920/22 means that old ones are impossible, and silver dissapears of course.

1917 Mercury dime worn to heck and dented like mad.

The oldest coin that was actually tendered to me in change was an 1892
Columbian Exhibition half dollar in G back in 1961 or so. I have gotten older
coins in rolls and the like such as the silver dollar rolls and I've spent many
coins dating back to the 1810's because they were culls. I've even spent
two and three cent pieces.

Culls have good value now but ten or twenty years ago you could barely
give them away.

A War Nickel a few years ago.

1948, 1 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent and 25 cent are the oldest coins that were circulating in the Netherlands (during my life), before the euro was introduced. I've had them all in change.

They were the first coins that were struck after WW2 and pre-WW2 coins weren't circulating anymore during my life.

When being abroad, I think the oldest I got was a george VI cent in Canada, I guess it will have been a 1940's as well

Mexican 1814 1/4 Real copper with Ferdinand VII in a COINSTAR machine, about 3 years ago. Really worn, but it's all there. BTW, ALWAYS check the machine's coin return on your way out of the store. The machines will spit out anything off-sized, and most people don't know this when they pour in a big accumulation of change.

I,m a 60,s child (early) so I got loads of Victorian coins given me once I registered ny interest.
There was also loads of pre 47 silver (50%) in the UK that went through my hands on necessities like 10 Nr 6 (ciggies) which all us hard nuts used to do.
Thankfully I've turned into a Handsome gent who does't smoke and drinks moderatly....I would go for a bit of Special Pizza at a peace gathering as long as the kids were at Grandma's..... ....Haven't done it for years but its no worse than a bottle of Malt Whisky....I think

USA 1918 cent

A 1936 Walking Half in with a bunch of Kennedy halves.
Also found a 1945 Walking Half same way.

Oldest that I'm sure of was a 1918 Wheaty.

Huh??? The '20's poll is ahead, I wish. Hehe
I have found a 1940 nickel that's it!

Some context is important. I am older, so I have gotten Liberty nickels and Barber dimes in change.

However, counting only "recent" events, in 1999, in Basel, I got a 20-rappen in change from the early 1900s (1905 or so) and it was so nice, XF+ with luster, that I set it aside and put it in a 2x2.

Being of a certain age and from Britain, until 1970 or thereabouts I regularly saw bronze coins dating back to 1863 and occasionally silver coins even older. However, since they were well worn and not uncommon nobody really bothered with them even today the worn Victorian pennies and halfpennies have little, if any, value.

PAB.

Growing up in the 60's and working as an automotive fueling specialist (gas pump jockey), I often received obsolete coins that dated back to seated Liberties and occasionally even a bust coin or two. (In fact, this is what got me started on bust halves.)

Later, after college, I went back to said small town and asked a couple of elderly gentlemen who had been regular customers if they had been "priming the pump" so to speak and seeking a new collector. Never could get either to admit it but I still think so.

I now do the same thing. It is really cool to see the look when you spend a large cent or cull silver. Who knows...maybe the next Bustchaser is out there right now.

Jim

I was about 10 or 11 years old, back in the early '60s. My mother was getting change for a purchase and the clerk said something like "oh wait a minute, I almost gave you a foreign coin". I looked at it and said "I don't care, I'll take it!!!" The 'foreign' coin was an 1849-O Seated Liberty half in VG/F condition.

About the same time I convinced my grandfather to let me go through the cash register in his store whenever I came to visit. He was in an old Polish neighborhood where many of the residents didn't trust banks so coins and bills tended to simply circulate from one shop to the next. I pulled out Indian cents back to the 1870s (however no '77 ), bunches of Barbers, even a couple of shield nickels. Nothing to match that half, though.

Same as trantor_3 ... before early 2002, the oldest pieces in circulation in Germany were dated 1948, and once in a while I came across one. Coins dated 1950 were common as dirt even in the late 90s. In the Netherlands I also got 1948 Wilhelmina coins in change several times. These days the oldest coins around here are dated 1999 :-)

Christian

1926 wheatie

I feel like I've come across an Indian head with my dad or something but I think 1910's is most likely.

1910 cent in a box search back in December.

I have to agree with that. Since I'm really up there in age some of the coins people find in the last 40 years were commonly used in change when I was a kid. Heck, there wasn't even a Red Book, Roosevelt Dimes weren't invented and I remember people complaining about those new Quarters that came out recently called Washington Quarters.

1910 cent.

I've known people who have received coins from the 1800's in circulation but the oldest I've ever found was a 1913-S Lincoln cent.

A couple years back, while at a gas station, the attendant showed me a Morgan Silver Dollar someone had just used to purchase gas. He didn't know what it was but he wouldn't part with it either.

I remember going through our coppers counting it up into pounds,
pre decimal there was 240 pennies to the pound that`s 480
half pennies.
We found this Copper/Bronze coin, small, very thin and worn,
a neighbour told us it was a Roman coin!

Thinking back now, it was probably a farthing, but we`ll
never know? It went missing!

Found an 1892 and an 1893 IHC in a roll from the bank a few months back. Third in line was a 1912 wheatie back in 2000.

The oldest I ever found was the one that initially got me into coin collecting many years ago...around 1956 or 57 I found an 1864 Indian Head Penny in change, took it to a coin store and he gave me $5 for it...must have been the "L" variety and it was in really nice condition...nothing with that much of an age spread since though last year I got a 1916 Barber dime in change, in about G condition, very worn.

Some of you have some uncanny luck.................

Talking about luck, last summer my wife and I were at a garage sale and some lady just bought a purse for 50 cents, as she walked away she discovered a very shiny full luster Peace Dollar in a side compartment! Since then I always check out purses at garage sales!

It is not a lot of luck, but a lot of effort. Since last summer I have been buying up $25 boxes of cents and going through them for the pre-1982 bronzes, all the other finds are welcome surprises, here are my results from last weeks search:

About 1,000 pre 1982 bronzes and the following treats:

USA
1912 -Another early birdy:)
1919
1941
1944
1945 x 2
1945-D
1946
1947-D
1951 x 2
1951-D
1952-D
1955
1955-D
1956-D x 2
1956
1958
1969-S x 2
1970-S x 2
1973-S x 2
1974-S x 5
1992 10% clip on the right side.

The first roll I opened up had a 1955 cent in it. The 1912 came near the
last roll of the 100 I opened. Last month I got a 1910, it amazes me that I
can still find 90+ year old coins in circulation.

1860's trade token in with some pennies at work. Other than that, a 1904 indian head cent and a 1898(i think) V nickel.

Bump for our new members.



There... that should liven up the forum for a bit.

I can't believe I hadn't replied to this before...

I got a 1917 wheatie from the self-service checkout at WalMart once.

A friend of mine once found an 1868 IHC in the parking lot at Schnucks.

As I said a few posts ago. I'm so old that when I was a kid many, many sitting Liberty coins were common in change. Mercury Dimes were the norm except for numerous Liberty Heads. I remember when they stopped making the Walking Liberty Halves and everyone thought What Now? Indian Head Cents were as common as Lincoln Cents.
I really have no idea what the oldest coin I pulled out of circulation but probably many from the 1800's since so many were always around.
AHHH, if I only knew then what I know now.

A 1944 wheat cent..... *sigh* I wish I did more roll hunting, but it just doesn't ever seem to light my fire.

I haven't been collecting for very long and I only recall seeing last year when I'd check my change a 1954 Nickel. Ho hum.

At the bank I worked at last summer I found a 1911 Liberty V nickel... it's the reason I'm here today

1897 Indian Head Cent. Condition AY (AboutYuck)

1971, and I get them every day

I guess before 1990 I would have handled a fair few 1968, but none which I collected at the time.

A 1909 Indian Head Cent in VF condition.