Hey guys, just wanting to garner some advice from the crowd out there. I was at my grandfathers late last week and as I was about to leave his storage area when he asked me if I wanted a bag of pennies. I knew what he meant when he said that, he was saying he had some old pennies to give to me and to take them if I wanted them. I always take whatever my grandfather offers me (he always says if someone is giving something to you, take it no matter what because its free) unless its a ridiculously high end item then I usually turn him down. Anyway, i just thought it was a bag of random extra wheaties, which of course is exactly what the largest portion of the coins were. I think i only pulled 5 pennies out there were dated prior to 1940, and one statue of liberty half dollar, everything else was 40s-50s wheat cents. However, there were 2 plastic tubes with some pretty red pennies inside. I didnt pay any attention until I got home and started to organize and separate everything. Well i sorted all the loose wheaties by era like i normally do, pre 40s in rolls, post 40s in a big jar. Thats when i started to get to the rolls. I checked the tape on top holding the lids on and the caps both had 1960. One had a small LD and the other had a small SD written on it, im assuming standing for Small Date and Large Date. Now I have a roll of both varieties and without opening the tubes for examination all seem to be bright shiny red Lincoln cents. So my question is what should i do? Submit for grading and see what happens, leave as is, sell the whole rolls, keep the whole rolls, what? I really dont know what to do about these. They seem to be worth a little bit in full red gem condition in MS-65 of better. Im fairly certain all 100 would grade at least that high judging by what I can see, im just curious on what I should do with them. Right now they are being left as-is in my box with my other rolls, the only thing i may do is re-tube them and put them back up for now, mainly to get a chance to look them over and see the condition. So im just looking at my options and seeing where i should head next with these. Thanks for any input or advice!
large date 60's are common, do what u want with those, u can easily get them on ebay, small date 60's are not so common, u should first verify that they are small dates and i'd even check the large dates as well as they can sometimes be difficult to tell apart unless your very familiar with them, try here http://www.lincolncentresource.com/smalldates/1960smalldate.html , you can also search small dates on ebay to see what people are selling/buying them for an decide what u want to do from there. BTW i would not sell any unless your 100% sure of what they are first.
I'm sorry, these are the 60-Ds, not the Philadelphia minted Lincoln cents. Does that change which ones are of the more scarce variety?
Yes, small date Denver minted coins are not worth much of a premium over the large dates. I think the Grey Sheet puts them at around $4-$5 per roll.
agreed, 60 large date and 60D large and small date are all common varieties, only 60 small date is worth something and collectible.
I havent checked ebay's latest sales for these, but my biggest curiosity is that numismedia is assigning MS-65 and and MS-66 grades like $20 and $35 respectively, and 67's like $800+ so I was thinking now I should look for the best 2-3 coins and submit to see where they fall grade-wise. These rolls are brilliant, red, and super clean. My biggest issue is that im not a lincoln collector and therefore know nothing about the little nuances separating a 66 from a 67, or if i even possibly may be holding an MS-68. Both dates in a 67+ are valued over $500 each. I can almost guarantee these havent been looked at since grading coins became as big as it has and i may very well have a nice super gem in the lot of 100 coins. Probably the closest thing I will ever encounter as an 'unsearched' roll.....LOL Any more advice along these lines?
If you're not familiar with grading standards, I don't know what advice I can give you. You could try posting photos here, but getting decent enough photos for us to give you advice about the grade is notoriously difficult. I've opened a lot of brilliant, red rolls of 1960-D cents(both LD and SD) and I can tell you that 66s are hard to come by, and 67s all but impossible. You might want to sign up for an account at Heritage Auctions(it's free) and study the coins in their past auctions that were graded 66 and 67 by PCGS.
