The Coin Collector

Most pennies are worth exactly one cent. A few are worth hundreds, thousands, or even six figures, and some of them are still sitting in coin jars, cash drawers, and the change you got at the gas station. Now is a good time to look. The U.S. Mint stopped making pennies for circulation in late 2025, so the coins already out there are all there will ever be. As banks pull them in and people cash out their jars, a lot of interesting pennies are passing through hands one last time. Here are 12 pennies worth checking for, roughly in order from most to least valuable, with how to spot each one. All values are approximate and depend heavily on condition. What you need before you start You don't need much. A 5x or 10x magnifier, a bright desk lamp, and a kitchen scale that reads to a tenth of a gram will cover everything on this list. A magnet helps for two of the wartime coins. Most of these coins are varieties, meaning the error happened on the die that struck them, so every coin from th...

You found a dull, grimy old coin and want to make it shine. It's a natural impulse, and it's the single most common way people destroy the value of a good coin. The short answer: if a coin might be worth more than its face value or metal value, don't clean it. If it's common pocket change or a bulk lot you've already checked, gentle cleaning is fine. This guide explains why, shows you how to spot a cleaned coin, and walks through the few methods that are safe for the coins where cleaning makes sense. Why cleaning lowers a coin's value A coin's surface is part of what collectors pay for. When a coin is struck, the metal flows outward and leaves fine lines that catch the light. That glow is called luster, and on an original coin you'll see it roll around the surface like a cartwheel as you tilt it. Almost any cleaning disturbs that surface. Rubbing leaves tiny parallel scratches called hairlines. Polish and chemicals strip the top layer of metal and leave ...

 If you've found a jar of old pennies with two stalks of wheat on the back, you're holding Lincoln wheat cents, struck from 1909 to 1958. Most of them are worth 3 to 10 cents each. A small group of dates sells for hundreds or thousands of dollars, and a few mint errors have brought six figures at auction. This guide covers which wheat pennies are worth money, how to check the date and mint mark, and how condition changes the price. What is a wheat penny? The Lincoln cent was released in 1909 to mark 100 years since Abraham Lincoln's birth. Victor David Brenner designed it, with Lincoln's portrait on the front and two ears of wheat framing ONE CENT on the back. In 1959, the Mint replaced the wheat design with the Lincoln Memorial, which is why collectors call the earlier coins "wheaties." The Mint made billions of these coins, so most dates are very common. Nearly all are 95% copper. The exceptions are 1943, when cents were made from zinc-coated steel to save c...