I got this wheat penny off eBay. I got this about 1 month ago. Can you guys please tell me what this is worth?
The image makes it look plated. If you can, put your lights at 10 and 2 and bring them closer to the camera (higher angle to the coin).
Shiny, new, plated cent given away as a freebie by at least one US seller/dealer, that is how I ended up with two of these, here in Canada.
Oh, come now. The copper alone is worth a good 1.8 cents. The gold plating probably brings it up to at least 3 cents, maybe even 4. To answer the OP: it doesn't have much intrinsic value, and most collectors don't put much of a premium on these, either. I see that one sold on eBay recently for $7.99 plus $2.49 shipping, but another sold for one cent plus 53 cents shipping. I personally wouldn't pay more than a few cents for one, but on eBay, there's no telling what people will pay.
I was actually thinking something along that line, but with a different slant. There are a lot of coins like this -- coins that "look different" or are "shiny" -- that will catch someone's attention. Collectors call them "damaged" and turn up their noses at them. But if a child (or an adult!) finds one in a handful of change, it might catch his interest. It might lead him to ask someone else about the coin, or to start paying more attention to other coins that they come across. Eventually, he might start collecting. (He or she, of course.) So, don't think of it as "spending". Think of it as "sowing new collectors".
More importantly, a cent that most coin collectors would go out of their way to avoid, solely due to the third party modification.
Sadly it has no value but face if it has been altered with a gold plating. If it was B.U. to begin with then it would have been worth more w/o plating. Much like stickered and colorized coins, the collector value is gone and is only worth what you consider it to be to you and you alone. I once tried to steer a friend away from the gold plated state quarters because of this but he felt the gold plating would make them more valuable. Maybe a hundred years down the road but not in his lifetime. He bought them anyways. Littleton Coin Co. did this also as a freebie when making a purchase as does Mystic Stamp Company.
There is this poor guy I see on another forum with a gold plated set of 5 state quarters. He's been trying to unload them for almost 5 years. Same chips in the plating, same photos, same coins. Like I said, poor guy.
Reminds me of the gold foil stamps with First day Covers, a lot of hype about the gold foil but in reality, anyone who has collected First Day Covers and then tries to sell them, takes a beating. They sell for pennies a piece no matter what company issues them (Art Craft, Fleetwood).
Yep - plated THINLY with low carat gold costing almost nothing to do - then sell on Ebay to the uninformed or use in making jewelry like rings and coin braceletes!
