Question on Cents

Subject change~~I have 5 gallon water bottle of pennies that were collected over 30 year span (not recent years 80's and back). I have been sorting and sorting for days. Can anyone tell me ina nutshell which ones are really worth horlding onto? I've got wheat pennies, back to 1911, 1916, 1920, 1927, 1934D, 1942 p,a silver looking 1943D, 1943S, 1944 and on up to 1958? I have thousands of them from 1959 thru 1990.

 

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try this site.. it'll give you all the information you'll ever need

 

Unless your name happens to be Arizona Jack or RLM Cents.

 

lol, very true

 

well, typically cents from 1940 and later arent worth that much.
Although I'd save all the wheat cents but anything from 1959 and later... nah.

 

goody now i have to search the bag one more time for those varieties

 

question...............................

welcome, ropnwidow!

this may help some.

http://www.collectorscorner.org/pocket.html#Pennies

 

Generally anything pre-82...copper is up in value. You can sell them for 1.5 to 2x face on ebay or something. Seen some go slightly more.

Some 82's are mostly zinc iirc.

your key/semi key dates are 1909-1915 S mint (incl VDB), 1914-D, 1924-D, and 1931S. Any S or D mint cent Pre-1934 is generally worth holding onto though. There are also die varieties and stuff, especially the 1955 double die, dont really remember others though.

 

Hello ropnwidow and welcome to CT.

To anwser your qusetion in a nutshell is hard to do because there is no nutshell. The Lincoln cent has long history of 99 years with almost as many varieties, error, and types of cent to collect. If you are looking for the most valuable then the key dates (1909S VDB, 1909 S, 1914 D, 1922 NO D, 1922 Weak D, 1924 D, and the 1931 S) are what you want, but are the hardest to find.

Errors and Varieties can also be very valuable and are worth keeping but are just as hard to find as the key dates. They range form Doubled Dies, Over Mintmarks (OMM's), Repumched Mintmark (RPM's), and Large and Small Dates to Wide and Close AM's just to name a few.

Snaz and Grizz gave you two very good sites that will help a lot and here are a few more www.coppercoins.com and www.coinfacts.com.

So in a nutshell you have a large task ahead of you so take your time and if you have any more questions someone here will have an anwser for you. Good Luck and I hope you enjoy the hunt.

 

1959 to 1981 (and some 1982's) are copper. If nothing else, they are going for about 2¢ each. I will grant you there is not much for numismatic values there aside from a couple varieties, but you still have the copper value

 

Welcome ropnwidow:hammer:
You should just give to me and I will save you the time it will take you to look thru them.
Just kidding, there a lot of fun to see the changes thru the years.

 

Welcome ropnwidow. CT is a lot of fun with a lot of very knowledgeable coin collectors here to help.
So far as what to to.... I WANT TO HELP! ... beyond that, just don't let it get to you before you have searched all the coins for the best ones.
May I ask, how are you sorting the coins to start the search? Most of us would start by sorting by decade, putting all coins according to the third number on the date, remembering the Lincolns began in 1909, so one would include them with the 10s.
After that it is easier to sort out the coins by year and then by mint mark.

Some of us use egg cartons for sorting, muffin pans work, the plastic boxed with dividers that are used for embroidery floss are great, and relatively unexpensive, and have snap down lids so you can stack the boxes for storage. Just a couple ideas.
You can also store the different years and mint marks in small ziplock style bags.

If you intend to start a coin collection from the bounty you might want to become familiar with how the quality of the coin makes for a better collection. My collection began with the cents, and a copy each of "The Red Book of Coins", and "Photograde", and "Looking Through Lincoln Cents". There are many other books that are helpful, but these are the three main books I have at within easy reach when I am searching cents.

You know, Most of all have fun, ask questions whenever you want to and post pictures if you would like this community to see a particular coin. Someone will surely be helpful.

jeankay

 

Hi ropnwidow, If I am reading your post correctly you say that you have "silver looking 1943D, 1943S, 1944 and on up to 1958?" If you are correct on the date I would take it to a pro and have it checked out. 1944 steel cents are very rare and valuable. If I'm reading it wrong ,ooops, Good Luck, I hope it's the real deal...... John

 

I have worked at banks and grocery stores over the years and never seen a coin like this 1943D Silver looking coin. It is lighter in weight than others, but it does stick to magnets. From what ive read that is not good? But I know it's more than that, just the fact that it is a wheat penny is good enough for me, for now.

 

JeanKay

Thankj for your thoughts and ideas on sorting. Just for a funny hahah, I am using the large coffee cans (the 5 lb size) for the 70's 11/2 cans, 80's 3 full cans. It's all too much fun this treasure hunt Im on. Thanks again

 

1943 S/d

This penny is hard to call an S or D, but its a great penny. What do we use to clean the pennies? I was wondering if anyone has heard of this product called Whink? It's a brown squirt bottle and you get it at Ace hardware or little mom and pop stores. It's used for removing rust in toilets or clothing/ carpets. I use a soft tootbrush or makeup brush and it does a great job.

 

ROPNWIDOW the best advice I can offer is to get you as many books as you can find and sit down with a huge pot of coffee and just go to work. Note all the Key dates and all of the varities and set those aside. Continue going thru the rest and you will see a pattern develope. Also get you a very powerfull Loupe and examine all of the Key's and Varities very closely. Then check them again!
Also, while everyone is right about Copper, people do not seem to be aware that Zinc has had the highest rise in value from 03-06. It even surpassed Gold, Silver & Copper in those years at a 207% increase in value. You can find the source of this info from the U.S. Mint; Bloomberg Financial Market; The New York Times.
Regardless, just take your time, do your home work and remember knowledge is power!

 

DO NOT CLEAN ANY COIN!!!!!!!!!!!

If you clean it, you will do nothing but lower the value!

 

And we love pictures to view your coins. I use a digital camera, a 30x loop and a microscope. Sometime I use two lens I took out of some old binoculars, taped them together a it's about a large 10x loop.