Has the 1909-S VDB Always Been a Collectible, Sought after Coin?

braddick

I'm surprised whenever I see a 09-S VDB in lower, circulated grades. Didn't Collectors, even back in 1910, know the 1909-S VDB was a tough coin? If not, when did it become general knowledge it was a valuable Lincoln and worth much more than a cent?

You would think before this sample: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3900953416&category=39456 ever got to its GD04 status someone would have plucked it out of circulation.

Merc

Yes, I've read these were collected right away. There are many in unc in the pop reports. I think most of the mintage was saved.

kamehameha00

I think most of the reason why alot of these were saved was because it was a first-year coin.Back them most of the people thought it was just going to be a 1 year type so they stashed them away in large numbers.

JrGMan2004

Yeah, it seems to be a readilly available coin... but also highly sought after... high supply, but even higher demand drives prices up...

291fifth

For the entire time I have been collecting (since 1961) the 1909-S VDB has been a much sought after coin. There is no question in my mind that, based on actual rarity, it is overrated. However, it is very, very popular and that keeps the prices up.

tjkillian

My aunt found one in her change when she was a collector as a little girl. It was a known rarity at least in 1940 when she found it

Tom

PhillyJoe

Mintage of 484,000 before they pulled the plug. A reasonable collectible for the time.

Joe

merz2

I believe it was a collectible for all the reasons stated above.The fact that the Lincoln Cent was collected more than any other coin was because people couldn't afford to save higher denomination coins.That coupled with the other reasons stated above make the 1909-S VDB a must have for Lincoln collectors.

Shamika

This coin was collectible at day 1.

However, this didn't mean that people could hoard these coins. Banks would limit the number of these cents delivered to patrons. I believe I once read an article where banks required signatures from their patrons before handing them out so that everyone had a chance to have one.

"I'm surprised whenever I see a 09-S VDB in lower, circulated grades. Didn't Collectors, even back in 1910, know the 1909-S VDB was a tough coin?"

Not everybody is/was a collector. Even today, a valuable error or doubled die might circulate itself into oblivian unless noticed by a collector.

LovethoseIndians

One of THE if not THE mostly highly sought after coins...especially in XF or above where its believed there are only 50,000 such around (XF or above)....

Shamika

"especially in XF or above where its believed there are only 50,000 such around (XF or above).... "

Considering that 50,000 is in excess of 10% of the entire mintage, I'm not sure that I would use the word "ONLY".

CapAnson

I remember reading something a while back about unscrupulous dealers in the 20s and 30s selling vials with little "s" mintmarks in them that could be attached to cents to make the rare variety so they would have been widely recognized as such at least back to then..