Lincoln was born in 1809. The Lincoln cent was issued in 1909. 1959 is the 150th birthday of Lincoln. Part of coin collecting is our access to and understanding of history.
Just the other day I was throwing out some empty boxes and nearly discarded a 2009 Lincoln Coins & Chronicles set.
So true!!! Now the new coins are ugly and worthless plated tokens, except the silver/gold ones. Is there any reason to collect, yet grade plated slugs? What say you? I know i am asking for trouble as Leonard Quick Sr says, though i don't care!
"Ugly Buildings, Politicians, and Whores all gain respectability with age." I guess we can add "clad coinage" to the list.
1959 represented the 150th year of Lincoln's birth. Coin was originated in 1909, 100 years after Lincoln was born. 2009, another change on reverse, represented 200th year anniversary of Lincoln's birth. If you haven't figured it out yet, every 50 years, US Mint has major reverse change for zincolns. Hopefully, if the US Mint decides to stop producing zincolns for circulation, they will continue minting for collectors, both biz and proof strikes. Canada missed the opportunity to make some money rather than losing it on regular cent strikes. Since the U.S. has quite a few more collectors and the zincoln is one of the longest running coins (plus apparently holds the record for sheer numbers), it would make sense to continue minting the zincoln for collectors. Unfortunately, the US Mint has not shown consistent intelligence in producing/introducing new/present coins. Anyone collecting the absurd innovations coins?
Change in 1959 no problem, the real problem came with the 1982 Zincoln. Just my opinion. Thanks for your post.
The 59 with the wheat reverse is not a mint produced error coin. Yes it has sold for a lot of money more than once. And, it has even been verified (by non coin experts from the US government) as not being fake. But no TPG will certify it, because they know it was created outside the mint. Several good stories on the net about this coin. Had a wheat reverse die accidentally been used, thousands of coins would have been produced before it was pulled. And even if those coins had been produced and destroyed, there has to be a paper trail accounting of that happening and there is none. You could check old threads here. No, there aren't any real ones.
Will consider all this "talk" serious, although not sure. Anyway, without knowing any of "the story" behind it, will take a stab and say that the 1959 Lincoln cent was changed that year to show the "Memorial" reverse because it was the 100th anniv...1909..of the obverse...which in turn was the 100th anniv of Lincoln's birth (1809). Makes cents to me...more than waiting another year which really wouldn't have commemorated much of anything Lincoln...save for maybe the 100th anniv of Lincoln's first election to the presidency (1860). Hope this helps.
And for the celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2009, the mint produced 4 different reverses depicting different times in his life.