So I came across this 1889 Wheat in an old box. Would this happen to have any worth? Were the gashes on it man-made/or vending machine related?
That is not a Wheat Cent.. It is known as the Indian Head cent with a Wreath.. not Wheat stalks. Your Indian Head Cent is damaged. Man made damage. Not a Mint error and only worth 1 Cent.
The damage was not from a vending machine, but from some other machine. Think about it and think in terms of living history. Your coin is from 1889, the steam age. Electricity was just coming in. These coins circulated fairly well even until about 1940 or so. The Lincoln Cent came in 1909, of course, but you could still find the occasional IHC (Indianhead Cent) in change even into the 1950s. Someone used this in a machine as a shim or a block to stop the action. Have you ever worked in a machine shop? I know that PaddyMan98 thinks it is worth just 1 cent, but even a damaged IHC is a dollar item in a junk box. And for me, it is the story of the life of the coin. Obviously an equivalent coin without damage would be more desirable to a collector, but it is still an artifact of a time. I would never spend it for a cent.
