comments
Most Valuable Regular U.S. Coin
Email
 Print
|
Every time I get home, I pull out any change I have and throw it into a small container. As I was pulling out quarters to put in my car, I noticed a nickel that looked different from the one beside it. It was a 1941-P (it actually didn’t have a letter, which means it was minted in Philadelphia) and looked more gray than the 2001-P right next to it. Not being a numismatist, I searched online to see if there was anything special about it.
There wasn’t, it was just old and beat up. They wouldn’t be a little more special until mid-1942, until 1945) when “Wartime Nickels” were produced. Wartime nickels were made of 56% Copper, 35% Silver, and 9% Manganese rather than 75% Copper and 25% Nickel.
That led me to reading more about coins and learning about the most valuable regular U.S. coin. I wanted to find a coin you could conceivably have in your pocket or piggy bank and just not know. I wasn’t looking for the 1805 Silver Dollar, worth $10.1 million, or the 1933 Double Eagle, worth $8.5 million (more exceptionally valuable U.S. coins). If you have one of those, you know it.
No, I wanted a regular coin.
Do you know what the most valuable U.S. coin is? If you guessed it’s the one pictured above, the 1969-S Doubled Die Obverse Lincoln Cent, then you’d be right. It’s a penny minted in 1969 at San Francisco where the obverse, the side with Lincoln’s face, was doubled up. The blurriness of the obverse isn’t because the picture is blurry, it’s because it’s been doubled stamped.
The coin is worth $86,250 according to this auction, which ended earlier this year.
Do you have one of these? 
Related Posts
 By Jim |
 Stumble It! Bookmark reddit.comTags: Coins, Trivia Oct 14, 2009 | Read more in Personal Finance |
Like this article? Get all the latest articles sent to your email for free every day. Enter your email address and click "Subscribe." Your email will only be used for this daily subscription and you can unsubscribe anytime.
@Jim – If you want to go treasure hunting through your pockets, check out the CherryPicker’s Guide. It has all of the Mint’s errors and many of these have become valuable coins over the years. With advancements in technology over many decades, most coins do, in fact, look alike, but these errors still happen when you’re producing many millions of coins each year.
If numismatics sparks your interest, you might want to pickup a copy of Q. David Bowers’ book, The History of United States Coinage. Not surprisingly, our coinage serves as a brilliant reflection of our economic history.
I prefer to buy old gold coins rather than Eagles, Maple Leafs, or other modern gold commodities. They’re more interesting and the premium for the numismatic value is relatively small (except for low mintage or high quality specimens).
Thanks for the recommendation of the CherryPicker’s Guide. I’m going to check that out. I always wonder if the change that I throw in to a jar is worth something more.
I just checked my pockets, I don’t have it
Oh man, I actually think my wife may have one of these or at least one of the error mints. She’s an avid coin collector and has been collecting San Francisco mints here for the past 10 years!
Don’t think the condition is that good though.
I’ve been collecting 1920’s-1950’s baseball cards for a while. It’s a fun hobby that goes up and down with the markets too.
You never know what you can find randomly. However, for the most part, the market is efficient so you will likely never find something so rare unless it’s at a show.
My dad saved all the wheat pennies that he would find and we have jars and jars of them. I wonder if those are worth anything…
I read somewhere recently that basically every wheat penny is worth at least $0.03, and some are worth considerably more.
Even regular pennies are worth more than $0.01, when you melt them down.
Not really. Only the pennies with dates from 1909 to 1981 are 95% copper and they are worth about 1.87 cents today but that depends on the price of copper. Some of the 1982 pennies are copper but some are zinc alloy, and this also excludes the 1943 penny which was made of steel. Pennies made 1983 to current are zinc alloy and only have a melt value of about .005 cents.
Generally dealers will pay 0.02-0.03 for bulk, low-grade wheaties. The older wheaties selling for more. Anything 1909-to say mid 1930 are a little more valuable in low grade. The coin at auction is a very nice coin. MS63 is a very high grade, scale goes to MS70 and most modern coins right out of the mint don’t rate that grade. The population report for this coin has only two known coins higher in grade.
Secondly, It’s marked Red, some pennies are more red than others, right now the preference is to have more Red than red-brown.
Lastly it’s a error coin which is a niche market and can have very high premiums. There were a lot of different Statehood Quarter errors, some offer a slight premium if you were looking for easy errors. Also other more common errors in the cent is “Wide AM”, which can sell for a couple of bucks on Ebay.
I hear that those new Derek Jeter coins are very valuable.
Let me flip over the couch!
I thought you wanted to abolish the penny.
They were selling the wheat pennies for 8 cents at the Rose Bowl Flea Market last weekend.
So sad. But kind of cool. … I think I have had a few double stamped coins in my life. When I was a kid I’d be like “oh, cool – this one looks smudged / uneven”. Then I’d go on with my regular day, spending it or dropping it outside while I played.
I’ll have to be more observant in the future.
DAMN! This makes me want to really check all my coins now.
Thanks for the trivia
Damn you Jim! Now I’ll feel compelled to check every single penny I ever come into contact with. How many of these things are in circulation?
Hahahaha like 2.
I used to collect coins when I was younger and there are so many cool coins you can just find in your change. Rarities like the one you listed are usually found before they hit the public, but it’s still possible to find less rare varieties.
I have a 5 gallon water bubbler jug that is 90%+ full, I guess I am going to have to get that book when I finally fill it, then dump, sort and cash in all the coins. Been filling it for almost 20 years (in my younger days I’d raid it when I was broke). I know I have forgone interest, but its something I enjoy.
I plan to hand sort every coin. Won’t hurt to look for rarities. I am guessing it has over $1k in it.
yes 2 1969 s do 1955 dd
i have 2 1969 s ds 2 1955 dd 72 dd 70 s ect