1909 Lincoln pennies are rare and valuable coins. Do you know how much they are really worth?
Here’s the scoop on the 1909 penny value, why the letters “VDB” and “S” appear on some 1909 pennies, plus more cool facts about these old pennies worth money!
⚡TIMESTAMPS⚡
00:00 Intro
00:10 Why are 1909 pennies so important?
02:04 What the “S” and “VDB” letters mean
02:36 Obverse and reverse details of 1909 pennies
02:53 Collectors seek pennies with wheat ears
05:21 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent
07:10 The controversy behind VDB appearing on 1909 pennies
09:18 1909 VDB Lincoln cents were recalled
09:28 1909 VDB-less Lincoln cents were introduced
09:45 How many 1909 pennies were made (mintage figures)
10:44 1909 “S” Lincoln cents became key dates for the series
10:57 1909 VDB Lincoln cents are scarce for the series
11:09 Retail prices / current values for 1909 pennies
12:08 Rare 1909-S VDB values
13:29 You don’t need to spend a lot for a 1909-S VDB example
15:01 Selling coins to pay off debt
15:58 Summary
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this is Josh with The Fun Times Guide and today we’re talking about 1909 Lincoln pennies.
Now, 1909 is a very important year for the Lincoln cent series. It was the very first year they were actually ever struck. And as a matter of fact, at least two very important coins struck that year in the series — the 1909-S VDB penny and the 1909-S penny.
Why are those coins so important? What are they worth? And how do you collect 1909 pennies? That’s the topic of today’s video.
In all my years of writing about coins, I think the one coin I’ve been asked the most about is the 1909-S VDB penny. And really, ALL 1909 Lincoln pennies are of great importance and curiosity to many collectors.
As you see here as demonstrated in this Dansco album (Lincoln cents from 1909 to date), these are in fact from the very first year Lincoln cents were ever struck.
And sure, there are many many different types of coins that the U.S. Mint’s made over the centuries. But there probably is not a coin as famous or as widely collected as Lincoln pennies.
They’re accessible. Generations of people have known them. And now, sadly, no one currently alive was born before the 1909 penny was ever struck!
This coin now is almost 120 years old. And if you look at the coins here in this album… I’m going to take out this slide so you can see these coins without glare. I’ll take off both the obverse and the reverse slides here — cuz I’m not a big fan of glare in my videos. And of course, clear plastic has a way of throwing glare everywhere.
So, we have here four coins from 1909… the 1909 VDB Lincoln cent, the 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent, the 1909 Lincoln cent, and the 1909-S Lincoln cent.
Now, what do these letters all mean?
Well, VDB are the initials Victor David Brenner. He’s the person who designed and engraved the Lincoln cent back in 1909. And we’ll talk in a minute about WHY the initials are so important to these couple of coins right here.
In this case, we see no VDB on either of these two coins. Essentially, the Victor David Brenner initials were removed.
Why was that? We’ll talk about that also in a minute.
But we want to look at the obverse and reverse of the head side and tail side of the coin first. Here is the head side (or the obverse). We see here a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, the United States 16th president. And on the reverse are wheat ears.
Now, wheat ears generally symbolize prosperity. And that’s what we see here on the reverse (or tail side) of these coins are wheat ears. And I think that many collectors, I can certainly speak for myself anyway, I really do know… most (safely MOST collectors, at least in the U.S. anyway), start off or at some point early on in their hobby work with, dabble in, or collect as die hard numismatists… Lincoln cents.
And Lincoln wheat cents stand out to folks like me who were born well after the very last Lincoln cents (or wheat cents) were struck in 1958 — because they look so different from the memorial reverse that I grew up with. Right here you see the very familiar Lincoln memorial reverse that started 1959.
I remember being, gosh, five and six… maybe seven years old and seeing Lincoln wheat cents in my piggy bank and my coin bank change. I didn’t think to save them back in those days because to me 1 cent was 1 cent that I could put toward buying a box of Lego blocks or a Brio wooden railway train set. So I didn’t think to save Lincoln wheat cents when I was a young kid. But I certainly remember seeing them pop up from time to time.
And for some reason… I don’t know, I just didn’t realize that coin collecting was even a hobby. I thought, “Oh, okay. Hey, there’s a cool looking… different looking… Lincoln cent. Okay, let’s put it toward the next Brio wooden railway set.”
I didn’t get into the hobby really until I was about 11 years old in 1992. And, it was actually a 1941 Lincoln wheat cent (that I found in my allowance change) that for some reason just piqued my curiosity. I thought, “Wow, 1941!”
I remember by then I already knew about World War II and the Great Depression and how 1941 was kind of that transition period between the Great Depression — or the end of the Great Depression and the start of World War II. And in my mind, the 1941 Lincoln wheat cent saw so many things in its lifetime.
And I thought, “Ah, I’m going to SAVE this coin!” And I was kind of then curious about how much it was worth. Before I knew it, I was looking for ANY kind of Lincoln wheat scent from any era. And I soon learned about the importance of the 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent.
Now, let’s go back here for a second. I’m going to show you what we have here. The 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent…
So, the “S” stands for San Francisco. That’s the mint that struck the 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent and 1909-S… as well as other “S” mint Lincoln cents.
VDB, again, are the initials of Victor David Brenner whose famous letters…
Let me go ahead and turn this book around here.
…can be seen. Let me get the loupe out. My trusty coin loupe.
All right. I do hope you’re able…
You know, I have done this for years now — videos on YouTube. And I have not yet mastered the art (and it is an art!) of showing very fine details with the loupe. I’ll be probably my whole career trying to figure this out. So, if anybody has any tips on this, PLEASE let me know.
Can you see them? I don’t think you can. Let’s go ahead and pan in here. Ah, do you see them now? The VDB initials — very, very faint. I think we have them. There we go… We did it!
Ah, see the VDB? They’re there. Anyway, those are the initials of Victor David Brenner on the back of the 1909-S penny. And the same here on 1909 VDB penny from Philadelphia.
Do you see them? I think you get the gist. They’re there. There they are! I will someday figure this out.
Anyway, and those are the 1909 VDB and 1909-S VDB Lincoln cents!
Now, a lot of folks will often ask, “Why were the letters VDB on the backs of the coin in the first place?”
It wasn’t that outlandish that Brenner wanted to have some kind of calling card on the coin he designed and sculpted. I mean, after all, to this very day, it’s kind of customary to place initials on the back of the coin or the front of the coin — if you’re a designer or sculptor, based on the side that you were involved with.
So, you know, it’s not like it’s a big deal in the context of history that Brenner wanted to have some kind of a mark, if you will, on the coin that would showcase that it was his work.
Reportedly, Brenner wanted to place his full surname (“Brenner”) on the coin. And that wasn’t going to fly. I mean, imagine where would that even go? Would you place “Brenner” across the front of the coin? Maybe here over the date? Or in front of Lincoln’s eyes? Or maybe above Liberty? Or on the back of the coin… maybe above or below “one cent” or “United States of America”?
Who knows? But it made sense to Brenner to place his initials on the lower center of the reverse. Which is not really, you know, all that bizarre in the context of initials and coins. I’ve seen them in far more prominent places than that, frankly.
But the legend has it that when these coins came out in August 1909, that the public was in uproar that Brenner had the nerve (the gall) to place his letters (his initials) on the coin. And that he was using the coin to advertise his artistic prowess or his design studio or whatever.
Scholars seem to think that what actually happened was the Mint brass did not give the coins a proper and full final review prior to the coins being released. And that had they done that they would have seen the initials on the back of the coin and could have made a judgment call then to either you know redesign the coin or release it or whatever.
The thought is that the Mint used the guise of public outcry of controversy as the reason for recalling the VDB Lincoln cents within weeks of their initial release. And going to the VDB-less Lincoln cents later in the year.
The VDB initials would not be restored until 1918 and they’d be placed in a much smaller font (or smaller lettering) under the shoulder of Abraham Lincoln — which you really can’t see. They are there, but they’re very tiny.
But the long and short of the story is this… The 1909 VDB and 1909-S VDB Lincoln cents saw very short and limited runs — resulting in very small mintages for both these coins. Right around 27 million 1909 VDB Lincoln cents were struck. And then in the case of the San Francisco Mint release, we had about 484,000 that were struck. Which are both very small numbers in the context of the Lincoln cent series.
I mean, we saw coins struck into the billions for any given issue later on in the production run. So these coins saw indeed… duh! Very, very small mintages.
Later in the year 1909 the Mint released its VDB-less Lincoln cents with right around 72.7 million Philadelphia strikes without the initials. And 1.8 million from San Francisco without the VDB letters.
Ultimately, what wound up happening was the “S” mint coins from that year (or the “S” mint Lincoln cents, I should properly say from that year) became kind of two of the most important key dates for the entire Lincoln cent series.
And then the 1909 VDB Lincoln cent — which is not really considered a rare coin but is “scarce” in the… you know… again, in the context of the Lincoln cent series. Because for those who want a VDB Lincoln cent, they kind of have to go to a Philadelphia strike IF they don’t want to pay $1,000 or more for a 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent.
So there’s a lot of pricing pressure on these three coins right here.
On top of that, the 1909 Philadelphia strike (which is really a common coin in terms of mintage) also has some nominal premiums. You’re looking at about $4 to $7 for a lower grade example of the Philadelphia strike.
Again, $10 to $20 bucks for the VDB.
$750 to about $1,000 for a lower-end 1909-S VDB.
$4 to $7 bucks for a Philadelphia strike without the VDB.
$100, more or less, for the 1909-S Lincoln cent.
Again, those prices are all retail prices for coins in lower circulated grades. You can pay a whole lot more than that for those four coins, though.
And I definitely want to make sure that I call out the price of the 1909-S VDB, which is a coin well known to hobbyists as being a great rarity.
Let’s look here at Heritage Auctions, a well-known numismatic auction firm. They also sell like Hollywood props and art and all kinds of cool stuff. Their auction archives here are extremely thorough. You can now find over a quarter century of auction results at ha.com.
And I typed in here the 1999-S VDB Lincoln cent. Take a gander at this folks… This 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent (an MS67 red) sold for $117,500 back in 2014. That’s not an outlier.
I mean, look at these prices here for these 1909-S VDB Lincoln cents in the same grade… $108,000… $102,000. Both sold in 2022.
So, the more recent examples of some very cool six figure results for this coin!
Keep on going… We see some very high-end five figure prices. The long and short of it is you can pay a lot of money for a very nice 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent.
But I don’t want you to think that that’s, you know, the price you need to pay to buy one. Again, you can buy a lower-end example for about $1,000. I bought mine on layaway in 2010 for about $1,000. You could pay a little bit less than that for corroded examples or pieces that are kind of just downright ugly. But, you know, you fill the hole with a legitimate genuine example.
You’d probably pay $3,000 to $5,000 for a very low-end uncirculated example. So you could really… you could pay across the board. But the bottom line, you’re looking at about $700 to $1,000 more or less for a straight graded example like this.
You might land one for $500 bucks or $450 bucks for, you know, a cleaned example or a corroded piece. I prefer to buy a straight graded example — because to me it looks nicer. It’ll tend to appreciate in value better. But it’s really up to you, whatever you can afford to do.
I don’t know… I will never… I don’t ever PLAN, I should say… to sell this coin. Once I found out early in my numismatic journey about the rarity and the allure of the 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent, I was hooked.
I actually dressed one Halloween as a 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent. And I waited for decades to buy this coin.
I actually have made videos that talk about my selling coins to pay off debt. That was the case for a 1955 doubled die Lincoln cent that I bought years ago, then sold to help pay off the house. I later bought that coin back. Not that example, but one like it.
I don’t plan to sell this one though. This coin has meant too much to me over the years. I waited decades to buy it. I bought on layaway. Which was a big deal to me when I bought this coin… when I had my first kind of real job. You know, that paid well enough to allow me to afford it. Come heck or high water, I’m going to try and hang on to it.
But at the end of the day, as we see, whether you have a 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent, or a 1909 VDB, or either 1909 / 1909-S VDB-less Lincoln cents, these are rare and valuable coins that are certainly worth collecting!
And there you have it… 1909 pennies ARE worth a lot of money! We’re talking $4 bucks and up for a 1909 penny, $10 to $20 bucks for 1909 VDB Lincoln cent, about $100 for a 1909-S Lincoln cent, and $750 to $1,000 for a 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent. A coin that you could spend six figures on if you really wanted to!
Let me know in the comments below if you have any 1909 pennies or other Lincoln wheat cents that you want to learn more about. We also have on Coins.TheFunTimesGuide.com a whole parade of articles on Lincoln wheat cents — including 1909 pennies and 1909-S VDB pennies.
So again, this is Josh with The Fun Times Guide thanking you for your time. Hope you had fun watching this video. I always appreciate your support and viewership. Please, if you like our videos, subscribe to our channel, like and share our videos, and happy collecting!
