hobo finds wrote:What about the numbers if you include all small cents mintages from flying eagles to copper memorials and proofs. Are there still more zinc cents made than copper ones
![Question :?:](./images/smilies/icon_question.gif)
Definitely. Although, I wouldn't include 1857-1864 mintages, since they SHOULDN'T end up in a cent bag. I would say they are more likely to show up in a nickel bag. And I didn't include the Indians because it's held by some they are found about one in a million cents, so they would affect percentages only negligibly.
For clarity's sake, though, and to really continue the intellectual exercise, here are all the basic divisions of small cents:
Copper-Nickel Indians and Flying Eagles: 200 million.
Bronze Indians: 1.7 billion.
Bronze Wheats: 24.7 billion.
1943 Steelies: 1.1 billion.
Bronze memorials: approx 153 billion*
Zinc memorials: approx 275 billion*
Post-memorials: 28.2 billion and counting.
* - The 1982 mintage (total 16.7 billion) was split between copper and zinc. These figures assume 5 billion were zinc.
Or to simplify it even more:
CuNi: 200 million.
Bronze: 180 billion.
Steel: 1.1 billion.
Zinc: 303 billion.
(Chug, chug, chug, chug... 304 billion... chug chug chug... 305 billion...)Link here for the current year's ongoing totals:
http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/in ... N=91115970