Lincoln Penny: Coins, Changes, and Big Mistakes

Hold a token in your hand and think what is the 1941 penny value? Before you run to eBay, study in general what the Lincoln coins are valued for, check if you have a fake. 

Due to the fact that there are too many variations, scammers will gladly want to create a rare error on their own, or transfer the year, so it is important to focus on what the coin should look like and what not.

Values change based on market demand, condition, grading, and the specific characteristics of individual coins.

Wheat Ears Reverse 1909–1958

VDB Trouble 1909

The first coins made in 1909 made some people angry because Brenner put his small letters, "V.D.B." on the back edge of the coin, and even though artists usually put their letters on their work. 

Many people and some government workers thought the letters were too big, looked like he was just trying to get attention, so the making of these coins stopped after only a few were made, and then the letters were taken off the design.

• The 1909-VDB coin from Philadelphia has the small letters

• The 1909-S VDB coin from San Francisco is the rarest coin from this time because only 484,000 were made

Key Dates of the "Wheat" Time 1909–1958

The 1914-D from Denver is the second rarest coin in this group because the factory did not make many, and the 1922 No-D is a mistake where the Denver factory forgot to put the "D" letter on the coin, while the 1931-S from San Francisco has the smallest number made, 750,000, for a regular coin after the 1909-S VDB.

And the 1955 Double Die Obverse (DDO) is a well-known coin mistake where the writing and the date on the front side look like two lines because the stamp was made wrong.

The Big Change in Metal: The Steel Cent 1943

The biggest change was when they made the special steel cent in 1943 because during the Second World War (1941–1945), copper metal was needed for the army, such as for bullets and wires.

So the US Mint made a choice to save copper by making the penny from cheap steel metal that had a thin cover of zinc on it.

The 1943 Steel Cent looks silver, but these coins got rusty very fast, and people sometimes thought they were the same as the ten-cent coins, so after 1943, the Mint used old copper from used bullets to make the coins again until 1946.

Mistakes of the "Wheat" Time

The 1943 Copper Cent is a truly famous mistake because a small number of pennies were accidentally made on old copper metal from 1942 instead of the new steel metal.

And each of these coins is worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars, while the 1944 Steel Cent is the opposite mistake, where steel pennies were wrongly made in 1944.

Lincoln Memorial Reverse 1959–2008

A part of this back side is a picture of Abraham Lincoln's statue sitting inside the memorial building between the middle pillars, and in 1969, they changed the design a little bit to add the artist's small letters "FG."

From Metal to Zinc 1982

In the 1970s, it cost too much to make the Lincoln Cent because the price of copper went up, so the Mint looked for cheaper materials, and after trying different things, in 1982 there was a second big change in the metal the coin was made of.

And this is the metal they use now: before 1982, the coin was 95% copper, but since 1982, the coin has been 97.5% zinc with a thin layer of copper — 2.5% — on the outside.

The Mint made eight different types of coins that year: four with copper and four with zinc, and then four with a big date and four with a small date.

Mistakes from the Memorial Time

The 1969-S Double Die Obverse is one of the most expensive ones: the date and the words "LIBERTY" and "IN GOD WE TRUST" look doubled, and a noticeable doubling of the date and the writing.

Lincoln Bicentennial 2009

In 2009, to honor the penny's 100th birthday and Lincoln's 200th birthday, the US Mint made four special back designs, and each design showed a different part of the 16th president's life.

Four Designs of 2009:

1. Birth and Early Childhood: This design shows a small wooden house where Lincoln was born in Kentucky

2. Formative Years: This one shows a young Lincoln reading a book while sitting on a log in Indiana

3. Professional Life: A young Lincoln standing in front of the Illinois State Capitol, where he started his job as a politician and lawyer.

4. Presidency: This picture shows the unfinished top of the US Capitol Building, the country during the Civil War

Union Shield Reverse 2010–Present

Meaning of the Shield

This design shows a shield with 13 vertical stripes, the first 13 states were united, and the shield has a ribbon around it with the words "E PLURIBUS UNUM", picture shows how Lincoln kept the country together.

Modern Metal and Ways of Making

The metal used is still the same as since 1982: zinc with copper on the outside, and today, huge numbers of Lincoln Pennies are made, so collectors look mainly for coins that are perfect and new or for small mistakes that happen when the coins are made very fast.

Main Mistakes and Rare Types

Double Die

A Double Die is not when the picture moves during the pressing, but it happens when the stamp for making the coin gets two small, separate pictures put on it when the stamp itself is made, all the coins made with that stamp will have the design, writing, or date looking doubled.

Mint Mark Mistakes

The 1922 No-D is one of the three key dates from the Wheat time, because the stamp for Denver was used and cleaned so much that the "D" letter was completely gone.

And a Repunched Mint Mark (RPM) like 1946-S/S happens when the letter for the Mint was put in the wrong place first and then put in the right place — you can see a small shadow next to the correct letter.

And some "No S Proofs" coins, like the famous 1975 No S and 1990 No S should have had the "S" letter from San Francisco, but they were wrongly made without it.

Metal and Blank Coin Mistakes

The 1943 Copper and 1944 Steel coins were made on the wrong metal blanks, and an Off-Center Strike is a coin that was not pressed in the middle of the blank piece of metal.

So if the mistake is bigger, the coin is worth more, while Die Cap or Collar Errors are mistakes that happen when the stamp gets stuck or the ring around the coin is in the wrong place, which makes the coins have a strange shape.

Why People Collect Them

1. Easy to Find: Most pennies can be found easily or bought cheaply, except for a few rare "key dates" and mistake coins

2. Complete Groups: It is easy for collectors to set goals because the coin groups (Wheat, Memorial, Shield) are clearly separated by time.

Three Big "Key Dates" that Collectors Must Have:

1. 1909-S VDB (Wheat Time)

2. 1914-D (Wheat Time)

3. 1931-S (Wheat Time)