United States: 1909-VDB bronze Lincoln Wheat cent, saved by Ohio banker Leroy Zachman in 1909

United States: 1909-VDB bronze Lincoln Wheat cent, saved by Ohio banker Leroy Zachman in 1909

PCGS MS65 RD. Cert. #38640482.

Numista-908, Krause-Mishler-132.

Mintage: 27,995,000.

Gift of Josh Zachman ("@kazuma78" on CoinTalk). Date of acquisition unrecorded (circa 2020).

This is a nice full-Red Mint State 1909-VDB Lincoln Wheat cent. Initially in 1909, the first year of issue for coins of this type, the "VDB" initials of the designer, sculptor Victor David Brenner, were prominently shown on the bottom of the reverse between the wheat ears. This caused some controversy, and the initials were removed, thus being omitted on coins struck after August 12th of that year. Later, in 1918 and beyond, Brenner's "VDB" initials were restored to the obverse of the coin, in much smaller letters below the truncation of Lincoln's bust. Thus there were 1909 Lincoln cents both with and without the initials struck at Philadelphia and San Francisco.

This particular example has an interesting backstory. It has a known pedigree all the way back to the time it was first released for circulation in 1909. Several mint-fresh rolls of coins were saved before World War One by a collector named Leroy Daniel Zachman, Sr. (1884-1974).

In 1909, Zachman was a banker at the City National Bank of Marion, Ohio. His signature appears on some National banknotes of that era. The original mint rolls of coins he saved remained in his family for generations and this particular coin came from one of those rolls. It was very generously given to me by Leroy Zachman's great-grandson, Josh Zachman, who goes by the username @kazuma78 on CoinTalk. So it has an unbroken chain of provenance dating back more than 115 years.

I was pleased with the grade it received when I submitted it to PCGS.



005000