Community Voice Responses (March 7, 2017)

From the Feb. 10 Numismatic News E-Newsletter:

Do you think cents are worth searching for valuable errors?

Here are some answers sent from our e-newsletter readers to Editor Dave Harper.

After going through a large pile of wheat cents and happening upon a nicer grade 1942 “D over S,” which I subsequently sold at my local coin club, I would have to say yes. Looking over even the lowly cent piece for errors is worth the time – even if the time spent only nets you the knowledge of what wasn’t there.

Jack Schadegg
Silver Spring, Md.

Yes. I think it is worthwhile, but I feel that the Mint has not done us right. They do not want or help the small collectors. The young collectors cannot afford the Mint’s products; the Mint caters to the investors and big retailers that jack up the prices. When you try to buy at the Mint, you cannot get the items because they have sold out so soon.

My club has very few young collectors, and this is sad. When I was young, Boy Scouts and the others kids in school were interested, but not today. They are interested in video games and texting. The older ones are on the pad or cell phones. Just as stamp collecting, it’s gone. Coin collecting will be gone, too, except for the investors and the rich.

G. Vivian
Conyers, Ga.

Dave, I check my pennies constantly ... not for rarities but for wheats, etc. I recently found a 2016 Lincoln cent from a new mint roll with a 3/8th diagonal groove around Abe’s head to a depth down to the zinc.

Richard Weber
Address withheld

I recently searched through a box of pennies and stumbled upon a 1983 doubled-die reverse (and I sold it for $100 cash) and several other possible die errors. I have yet to research them, but I would have to say yes it is worth searching through cents for error coins.

Corey Newman
Address withheld

I go through all my cents and pull out any 90 percent copper pieces between 1959 and 1982. I have a scale to check the ’82s so I can tell if they are copper or zinc.

Every time I find a ’92 I have to see if it is a reverse of ’93 (the close AM). As an old-time EAC member I refer to these as ’92s with the reverse of ’93.

Michael Chazin
Address withheld

Yes, I do at least two times a month.

Name withheld