A Thought For Your Pennies

Did you know that the coins in your pocket and others that are lying around your home may be worth a bundle? It’s true. Ordinary-looking pennies and nickels, dimes, and quarters actually may not be ordinary at all. In fact, they may be highly desired by collectors, who will happily pay big bucks for them.

The value of a coin is determined by several factors, which include age, scarcity, and condition. Some coins are valuable for other reasons, such as those minted with an error. And coins boasting these characteristics have been found completely unexpectedly in ordinary change, yard sales, flea markets, and the like.

If you search through change looking for valuable coins it helps to be a numismatist, but it’s not essential to be one. As a generality, the older (scarcer) a coin, the more valuable it is. This, however, is not always the case. Consumerism Commentary notes that one coin minted in 1955 sold for $47,000, while an 1815 quarter dollar went for only $95 – even though it was made more than two centuries ago and is very hard to find.

How is this possible? The explanation can be summed up in one word: condition. And usually it is possible to spot a coin in mint condition immediately, as it will be especially shiny, its features bold and distinct, and the surface and rim will have no imperfections of any kind. Even relatively new coins with these features will command a premium over their face value.

On the other hand, a coin with deep scratches, and whose letters and numbers are worn to the point that they are difficult to read, will be worth only slightly more than face value – if anything at all. This is true even if the coin is as rare as the 1815 quarter dollar.

Top Condition

So what condition are your coins in? The answer to this question used to be in the eye of the beholder, but that system caused confusion and disagreement, among other problems. Buyers were charged high prices because coins were said to be in mint condition, but when trying to sell these very same coins, imperfections suddenly became conspicuous and the price offered for them was much lower than
expected.

Fortunately, these days coins are graded by professionals, and since this service is provided for a fee they are completely impartial. Coins are graded on a scale of 1-70, with coins that are essentially perfect rated “70,” while “1” is issued to a coin that is horribly worn, scratched, and in awful condition.

After being graded the coin is placed and sealed in a display holder that will (theoretically) prevent the coin from being damaged afterward and also prevent any tampering. The better the condition the coin is in the more valuable it is.

Of course, valuable coins can be purchased at full price from a dealer, but collectors whose budgets don’t allow for that hope to find them at bargain prices. And sometimes they do, as prized and hard-to-come-by coins sometimes find their way into the system, either by mistake or from estates whose heirs are unaware of their value and exchange them for dollars in banks.

Collectors are delighted to find these coins, certainly for the bargain aspect, but as collectors their joy is intangible and extends way beyond that.

Tips For Collectors

Here are some things to keep in mind when searching through the coins in your pocket or through rolls of coins available at banks.

*Dimes, quarters, half dollars, and silver dollars minted before 1965 are 90 percent silver, which adds to their value; Kennedy half dollars, minted between 1965 and 1970, contain 40 percent silver; all coins that have silver content are sought by collectors and investors.

*Surprising as it sounds, some nickels were also made with silver. So-called “silver war nickels” were made by the US Mint between 1942 and 1945; they are 56 percent copper, 35 percent silver, and 9 percent manganese. And some of these are still around.

*2009 was a low mintage year for all coins, so if you come across any coin made that year you might want to put it aside.

*Pennies minted before 1982 are 95 percent copper; after 1982 they were made almost entirely from zinc. Because the price of copper has increased over the years, the copper value of pennies made before 1982 make them worth two or more cents, and some people hoard them.

*In 1943, copper was needed to make equipment for the war, so the US Mint stopped making pennies out of them. Instead, they were made out of steel and plated with zinc. These coins stand out because, unlike ordinary pennies, they have a silvery-white color. Although there is no shortage of these – hundreds of millions were minted – even those that are beaten up may be worth as much as a dollar, and in mint condition far more.

Cents Make Dollars

Probably the most famous penny is the 1909 S VDB, minted in San Francisco the first year the wheat penny was made. The “S” appears on the front under the date, and the VDB on the bottom of the back of the coin. Only 484,000 of these pennies were minted, and over the years many were melted or lost, so collectors are willing to pay a premium for them. In 2014, this penny, in mint condition, sold for $117,500.

However, the 1909 S VDB is not the only very valuable penny. The Mint made some errors minting pennies during World War II, and those are worth as much or even more. As noted above, pennies were made out of steel in 1943, but those proved unpopular with the public and the Mint went back to making copper pennies in 1944. However, a few steel cents were made in 1944 and those are worth close to or even above $100,000. The 1943 copper cent, another error coin, is even more valuable than that one.

Pennies don’t have to be especially rare to be worth a bundle. Take the 1914-S. More than 4 million were minted, which means it is rare but not super-rare. However, it is very difficult to find one of these pennies in top condition, and in 2006 a 1914-S penny graded “66” sold for $105,800.

In mint condition, the 1968 penny is worth $12, not bad if you pull one out of your pocket. However, some were made off center – all the features are too far to the right – and as a result is worth $80. Some 1968-D pennies are clipped; part of the penny is missing. These coins were not damaged – they were made this way in error. This 1968-D penny in mint condition is worth $50.

Other error pennies have a double die reverse, which means that some of the letters or numbers appear twice and overlap each other. Others have different errors. For example, some 1984 cents are called Double Ear Coins because there is a second earlobe under Lincoln’s full ear. These error coins are worth $100, but in mint condition will fetch around $250. Other error coins are worth much more.

Are any relatively new pennies valuable? What about dimes, quarters, and half dollars? And if so, how can I recognize and find them? We’ll discuss these questions next week in Part II of this article.

Sources: apmex.com; boingboing.net;
coins.thefuntimesguide.com; coinweek.com;
consumerismcommentary.com; hobbylark.com.

By Gerald Harris