My dad ran a small country store in the mid 60s until somewhere around 1970. When the US changed the silver coins to copper with silver plating , he began collecting all of the 1964 and older silver coins that came through the register. They closed the store somewhere around 1971 or so, but he continued to collect silver coins as he found them.
Then in the mid-80s, he heard that the US government was no longer making pennies out of pure copper, so he started collecting pennies dated 1981 (I think that was the date) and older. He was retired then, and mom would go to the bank and get him rolls of pennies, dimes, and quarters for him to look through. It gave him something to do because he had bad hip problems and wasn't very mobile, and kept him out of her hair. When silver coins became very scarce, he started focusing on pennies, probably through the mid-2000s.
He passed away a couple of years ago, and I inherited a couple of thousand dollars (face value) of silver coins and three five gallon steel buckets full of pennies. The silver coins are rolled so I know what is there, but I have no idea what is in the penny bucket. Some day when I'm retired, I might go through them and see what is in those buckets.
I also found out that during WWII, the government changed pennies from copper to steel. He separated the steel pennies from the copper.
Mike
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