I was bored with all the snow and cold weather here in Minnesota so I did some number crunching just to see how rare some wheat pennies are.
First I added up how many wheat pennies where made by the mint from 1909-1958.
Total of all wheat pennies minted where 26,114,286,000. Thats 26.1 billion!
I thought that sounds like a lot but when compared to the lincoln memorial pennies its not. In 1982 and 1983 the mint produced over 30 billion pennies! 4 billion more than all the wheat pennies ever made. So compared to memorial pennies wheat pennies all of the sudden start to look not so common anymore.
Next I wanted to know how hard it would be to find some of the rare dates if you could take all the wheat pennies and evenly mix them how many would I have to search through before finding the famous 1909-S VDB, the rarest one.
Here is what I found out, to find a 1909-S VDB you would have to look through 53,955,136 wheat pennies before finding one. Or if you bought bags with 5,000 wheats in each one you would have to search 10,791 bags before finding one. That would be 366,895 pounds of wheat pennies! Just to find one! And that is why they sell for as much as they do.
Here are some more results:
1909-S one in every 14,309,197 wheat pennies
1914-D 1 in every 21,889,594 wheat pennies
1931-S 1 in every 30,155,064 wheat pennnies
1924-D 1 in every 10,362,811 wheat pennies
The following dates are about one in every 6+ million:
1911-S, 1912-S, 1914-S, 1915-S, 1931-D
And the 1909-VDB would be found only one in every 932,819.
And that is why I get so excited when I dig up a wheat penny when metal detecting or when I find one in my change!
Now hopefully my math was all correct....
First I added up how many wheat pennies where made by the mint from 1909-1958.
Total of all wheat pennies minted where 26,114,286,000. Thats 26.1 billion!
I thought that sounds like a lot but when compared to the lincoln memorial pennies its not. In 1982 and 1983 the mint produced over 30 billion pennies! 4 billion more than all the wheat pennies ever made. So compared to memorial pennies wheat pennies all of the sudden start to look not so common anymore.
Next I wanted to know how hard it would be to find some of the rare dates if you could take all the wheat pennies and evenly mix them how many would I have to search through before finding the famous 1909-S VDB, the rarest one.
Here is what I found out, to find a 1909-S VDB you would have to look through 53,955,136 wheat pennies before finding one. Or if you bought bags with 5,000 wheats in each one you would have to search 10,791 bags before finding one. That would be 366,895 pounds of wheat pennies! Just to find one! And that is why they sell for as much as they do.
Here are some more results:
1909-S one in every 14,309,197 wheat pennies
1914-D 1 in every 21,889,594 wheat pennies
1931-S 1 in every 30,155,064 wheat pennnies
1924-D 1 in every 10,362,811 wheat pennies
The following dates are about one in every 6+ million:
1911-S, 1912-S, 1914-S, 1915-S, 1931-D
And the 1909-VDB would be found only one in every 932,819.
And that is why I get so excited when I dig up a wheat penny when metal detecting or when I find one in my change!
Now hopefully my math was all correct....
