New at collecting and I found these 1990 pennies that are in excellent condition. I noticed at least one of them stands out more than the others.
It's all good. Take a look at real proof coins and you will be able to clearly see that yours isn't one. A big give away(at least for me) is the rims. Proof coins have nice sharp squared rims where-as business strikes do not.
I know about the S mint mark. I also have read where there was a mistake at the San Francisco mint that the S was missing on some of the proof pennies. So I'm always looking at 1990 pennies with no mint mark very closely.
In order to make it into circulation they would have had to have been broken out of their OGP and spent. If you want to know just how slim the odds of you finding one of these in regular circulation you should read this article: http://www.pcgs.com/top100/coin9.aspx
I've read that article before and found it interesting. Can't hurt to cross your fingers and toes, to hopefully come across one
Ha! True I guess...I just wouldn't waste too much time on them. Gives you more time to look at other coins
From that article: Why did they destroy these coins? A quick ebay search shows that they're worth up to $5600 in PR68 condition. The mint could have sold these coins for at least $2500 a piece, making over $350,000 in profit. By melting them down, they were able to make $1.45 in pennies. Is the mint run by morons? It's a no-brainer for me. They also shouldn't have melted down all the '64 peace dollars. 2014 is the 50th anniversary of these legendary coins, and if they had just put them in a vault they could have released a few thousand at a time and made millions of dollars. I'd give good money for a 1964 peace dollar and I'm sure hundreds of thousands of other collectors would do the same. It seems like the mint loves to cut off its nose to spite its face.
But what the mint calls a "mistake" is what makes a coin valuable to collectors. It seems like their pride is getting in the way of profits.
Bugo, Your reasoning is not absurd. I agree with you on some level but fully understand why the mint would destroy them. First, professionalism. They are a mint, only MINT pennies should be distributed. They actually helped the system by limiting the numbers of pennies, and raising it's value. Just like anything else, supply and demand are the driving forces for premium prices. I support the mints action of destroying those pennies. None the less, even if they didn't, we ALL would still have a very slim chance of finding one.
