1944S

Last night was a good night.

I started out by searching 650 hand rolled dimes. They didn't produce anything.

I then searched 2,100 pennies (hand rolled). In them I found eleven Wheats, thirteen Canadians, and one Ireland Euro 2¢. It was a bit of work. The person who rolled them must have been saving their pennies in a container with water as most of the pennies were very corroded. Sure wish I had something more to show for it. The Wheat varieites I found were:

1941(2), 1946(2), 1949, 1952D, 1954, 1956, 1956D, 1957



Lastly, I searched 4,000 nickels (two boxes). They produced one Buffalo (1936), four War Times (1943S, 2 x 1943P, 1944S), eight Canadians, one US dime, and one Mexican 1 Peso. The 1944S nickel is one of the three I needed for my album! I was very happy to find that one. It had been 157 days since I found the last Jefferson variety I needed, June 29th. It's a bit stained, but still looks great in my album. I wonder how long it'll take to find the last two!



The 1936 Buffalo find got me thinking about the varieties that are keepers, but somewhat disappointing to find. I seem to find so many of these "common" keepers that at times it kills me because I really want something different for my collection. My tiredness of them varies considerably. The 1936 Buffalo is definitely at the top of the list. The list of "common" keepers:

Pennies:

1940-1958 (except Steelies and 1955S) - They're Wheats so I keep the good ones, but I have plenty of these, especially 1946, 1956, 1956D, 1957, 1957D, 1958, 1958D.

QEII Canadians (except 1953 and 1985) - I've found tons of these. I don't keep them, but I count them for my statistics. I'm still looking for varieties from 1953 and 1985.

Nickels:

1936 Buffaloes - They minted a lot of them this year, 118 million, which is about 50% more than the next highest variety, but by my finds you would think it was ten times.


1943P - One of these days I'm going to flip one of these and find the 1943D. They minted 271 million 1943P's, but only 15 million 1943D, so statisticly I should find one 1943D for every eighteen 1943P.

Dimes:

1964, 1964D - About 1/3 of all silver Rosies were minted during 1964, about 2.3 billion during 1964* and 4.3 billion from 1946-1963.

Quarters:

1964, 1964D - These have a story similar to the silver Rosies. During 1964* they minted about 1.3 billion silver quarters.

Halves:

1965-1969 - These only have 40% silver and are worth far less than the 90% silver ones. When I find one something in me always thinks, "damn that could have been a 90."

* - Some coins dated 1964 were actually minted in 1965.