Well, I am really an early cent and error coin guy, but I had a chance to buy an unopened mint-sewn bag of 1964 lincoln cents today. Of course, I bought them to look for errors, and I am going blind as I type this, but my question is "what's it worth" ? $50 worth of uncirc '64 cents . (Besides the obvious $50).
My guess is that they aren't in mint state? Or are they? If they aren't in MS state then they are worth $50, as you stated. If they are MS each one might be worth 5 cents. Regardless, they are 95% copper pennies, which I believe will be worth more in the future (how far into the future is anybody's guess).
actually, I am not qualified to grade coins, but these suckers are brilliant red, and it is difficult to even find bag marks on most. my guess is that the guy that sold them to me got them nearly 50 years ago and then stuck them in a corner somewhere. I was shocked at the quality. And I found my first error already, so it was worth it from that standpoint.
They should have luster to be MS condition. From how you describe them, they might be MS state. Try not to finger them up too much, as finger oil will take the MS condition away quickly, and make the AU-58, which is only worth a penny.
Thanks for the input. I paid $60 for the bag, so I am in it for 10 bucks and have a clipped planchet and a minor double so far for my trouble, so I did fine. Was more just curious if I was crazy for wanting to search through 5000 pennies.
I don't think you are crazy.....just someone with a lot of time on their hands, I guess. I save every pre-1982 penny I come across.....so call me crazy as well. LOL.
I would've done it too. Except I would've been tempted to leave them in the bag. I mean think about it: how scarce is it to find an original, sealed bag of 46 year old coins from the US Mint?
Just out of curiosity does the mint bag have anything written on it about San Fransisco? I ask because San Francisco made more than 5% of the 1964 Philly cents in Sept. of 1965. This was the first year the SF mint was used since 1955...
Well, thanks for the comments guys... The bag didn't have any san fran reference, but it had been stamped several times, the last being 1964... One of the earlier stamps had been 1955... That would have been a good year for a search... Anyway, opened them and it smelled like I had opened the old dusty tomb of some pharaoh and I was pleasantly surprised by the luster of the coins... As I go through them, I find the expected bag marks, but overall, it was a very well spent $10 bucks... Found one minor error so far...
These are still out there in the market stuck in little old mens basements and proping up doors. The value $60 is a good buy and if unopened a very good buy for resale. I suspect on eBay it would bring well over $100 if an original unopened mint sewn bag. If opened $60 to $75 is the right price. This was still within the roll collecting phase of coin collecting and many were saved. I have searched them before unopened from the mint/fed many different years. If you can find one of the doubled dies die #1 or #2 reverse you may find many and could hit a home run here. Also any clips or off center strike on so on. The way I always did this is first dump them out on a large table and generally go thru them looking for the errors first. Next take 6 or 7 samples (50 or so) from all sides of the pile. Search these for doubled dies. If none are found it's going to be a long night, (or day) for you through the rest of them because there may not be one thing in there so far as doubled dies are concerned. Searching 5000 BU coins of the same date is the hardest search of all esp. if your not finding anything. You can also look for die markers to speed the process. If you keep finding a coin that is not a doubled die and it has strong die markers on it you can just discard as soon as you see that. There maybe gems in there, maybe not even if there are it's a common date and that's not going to be your home run most likely.
