Four Lincoln pennies that have sold for more than $1,500 recently – do you have one in your spare change?
[The Sun]
IF you check places where you store change, it’s possible that you have a penny featuring 16th US president Abraham Lincoln worth thousands.
The Lincoln cent has been around since the early 1900s – replacing the Indian head pennies.
There have been multiple designs of the Lincoln penny including the memorial cent, wheat ears, and reverse shield series.
When it comes to finding a rare and valuable coin, this often requires a low mintage or an error.
To see if your coins are worth anything, you can check eBay by searching the full name, selecting the “sold” listing, and then toggling the search to “highest value.
As always, the value of any coin is only worth how much someone else is willing to pay for it.
We reveal some valuable Lincoln cents that sell for $1,000 or more below.
They’ve all been circulated, meaning they could appear in your spare change.
1914-D Lincoln cent – $1,625
Starting with the 1914 Lincoln cent – the most important aspect you’ll want to look for is the mint location.
What you’ll want to look for in particular is a “D,” which stands for Denver.
There have been just under 1.2million of those Lincoln pennies minted compared to more than 75million of the 1914 Philadelphia coin version.
The 1914 Philadelphia minted penny is only worth over $1 in average condition, according to the USA Coin Book.
In an eBay listing in January, a 1914 D coin sold for more than $1,600.
1955 double die penny – $1,825
The 1955 double die Lincoln cent is said to be one of the most famous error coins in existence.
For those who aren’t familiar with this error, it means that there is a duplicate of letters, numbers, or words on a coin.
For instance, on this coin, you can clearly see “In God We Trust,” “Liberty,” and “1955” all doubled on the obverse on the coin.
“The 1955 Doubled Dies were created when the Mint struck a working hub and a working die together while they were both slightly rotated differently from one another,” Professional Coin Grading Service’s Jamie Hernandez wrote in a description of the coin.
This of course created the double die effect, which was mixed with millions of normal strike versions of the coin.
When it comes to recent eBay auctions, one sold for $1,825, another for $1,801, and one for $1,552.
1909 Lincoln VDB – $2,125
Those who are familiar with wheat cents will know that sculptor Victor David Brenner was the designer of those Lincoln coins.
In fact, he designed the very first Lincoln penny, which stirred up controversy.
This was the VDB penny, which had the designers’ initials engraved in the reverse.
But newspapers took issue with the placement of the initials, which were located on the bottom of the reverse side of the coin, according to Professional Coin Grading Service’s Ron Guth.
Mr Guth wrote that reporters argued that it was “far from inconspicuous and that the initials amounted to free, illegal advertising for the designer”.
He added: “Instead of placing the initials elsewhere in new dies, mint employees simply removed them entirely from the coin, and a new round of cents were produced without the VDB.”
And it’s so valuable not only because of the controversy surrounding it but its low mintage too – just 484,000 of these coins have been minted.
That’s compared with more than 72million of the other version of the 1909 coin.
One “red-brown” piece, which typically means it contains from 5% to 95% red surface, sold for more than $2,000 online recently.
1922 Lincoln cent – $2,910
When it comes to the 1922 Lincoln penny, the rarest piece is the one without a mint mark.
Typically, on Lincoln coins, the mark can be found under the mint year of the coin.
According to Jamie Hernandez, price guide editor for Professional Coin Grading 3Service (PCGS), all 1922 pennies should bear a D mint mark but there was “sloppiness in the production process”.
“As a result, it is believed that a mint employee obtained an old obverse die and filed it down in order to improve its appearance,” Mr Hernadez said.
“But instead, the mint employee ended up filing the D mint mark too much, and in return, created the 1922 No D Lincoln cents.”
In a recent online listing, a 1922 Lincoln penny without a mint mark sold for nearly $3,000.
We reveal the most valuable coins featuring US Presidents.
We show you how to find rare coins including ones featuring Lincoln.
Plus, a rare Lincoln penny with an error sold for $372 online.