Manticore Gets A 1909 S Vdb USA Penny

[Mark Gillespie]

awesome

 

[markinswpa]

Well done guy. Congrats. A once in a lifetime find. I did dig a 1909 VDB a 1909 Ihp on one hunt in an old park, unfortunately no S mintmark on either. Good to see you're enjoying the Manticore. Good luck. Mark

[rvpopeye]

Nice bucket lister !   

[Valens Legacy]

Congrats on the save of the year and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Good luck on your next outing.

[mn90403]

Jeff,

Very nice find from all reports but can you educate me on its value and this penny?

Mitchel

[Jeff McClendon]

37 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

Jeff,

Very nice find from all reports but can you educate me on its value and this penny?

Mitchel

Just Google 1909 S VDB

Wikipedia has a decent article about them.

Ebay has plenty of them for sale so check there for current value.

Price range in my 2020 Red Book coin value book is Good=$600 to MS63=$1,350. Some have sold for way more than that.

The one I found....who knows what it is worth due to the corrosion damage.  No doubt about its authenticity though.

[carl c]

wow what a great find 

[Gerry in Idaho]

Jeff,  You have earned an award find so many dream of...but very few succeed. Yes you could find a diamond ring or gold nugget worth more in todays market, but the overall rarity of this highly desired 1 cent is Tops to many of us detectorists.  In fact for me, it was the final coin to complete my Wheat Cent collection, minus error coins.  Hats off to you my friend for an extremely desired Cent.

[Steve Herschbach]

Fabulous find! Not to rain on anything the value of dug coins is rarely what people imagine. No way that will rate even as good. There are unofficial ratings like fair or poor and they are more likely to apply here. This coin makes me wonder what a professional cleaning service can do with it - how good are those people really?

[GB_Amateur]

2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

This coin makes me wonder what a professional cleaning service can do with it - how good are those people really?

Another similar question is "who are those people really?"  I'm pretty sure it's not the grading services.  I have seen that for special customers (those salvaging centuries old shipwrecks) at least one of the two biggies (NGC or PCGS, don't remember which) has a lab that does restoration.  I don't think they do that for just anyone, though.

It seems that the "get professionally cleaned" recommendation is just a way to pass the buck, getting the onus off the (expert) dealer who is refusing to buy the coin.  There is a stigma attached to cleaned coins and that isn't going to change.  For rare coins that can be accepted (well it still hurts the value but doesn't render a coin worthless).

It may be even worse in the general antique field.  Anyone who has watched more than a couple episodes of Antiques Roadshow will have seen examples of someone who refinished a piece of Colonial furniture (no matter how awful its condition was) being told that they just reduced the value to 25% or less of what it would have been if left alone.

Sorry I'm getting too far OT, Jeff.  So close to a near four figure coin if the ground had just been a bit kinder.  But as everyone so far has indicated, still an amazing, extremely difficult find.