Oldest coins you've found in circulation

[Ætheling]

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!

[nohope587]

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

[Ætheling]

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.

[Ætheling]

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 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...

[Dan769]

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

[Dan769]

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

 

Dan

[papadoc]

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

[Burks]

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

[Sir Sisu]

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

[AuldFartte]

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

[ccg]

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.

[Tiffibunny]

1917 Mercury dime worn to heck and dented like mad.

[cladking]

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.

[Guest Stujoe]

A War Nickel a few years ago.

[Trantor_3]

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

[16d]

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.

[Peter]

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

[Scottishmoney]

USA 1918 cent

[Rabone]

A 1936 Walking Half in with a bunch of Kennedy halves.

Also found a 1945 Walking Half same way.

[Dockwalliper]

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

[SilverDollarMan]

Huh??? The '20's poll is ahead, I wish. Hehe

I have found a 1940 nickel that's it!

[mmarotta]

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.

[PAB]

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.

[bustchaser]

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.)

[bustchaser]

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