Attention Hoosiers: Common Penny You Could Have is Worth $4,000

If you have a lot of loose change stored in your house for a rainy day, one penny you might have could be worth more than you could have imagined.

At home, I have a big tin container that has a pretty good chunk of change stored inside of it. If I had to guess, there's around $100 worth of change in there. However, I am going to have to go home after work to make sure there's not anything in there that could be worth more than the average coin would be. There's a certain type of penny floating around out there that is worth up to $4,000. Here's what to look for!

Common Penny You Could Have is Worth $4,000

You could have a penny in your pocket right now that might actually be worth thousands of dollars. That's intriguing, right? So, what makes this common penny so valuable? There's a video going viral from  The_Coin_Guy on TikTok explaining what to look for when it comes to this particular penny. Apparently, you are going to want to take a close look at President Abraham Lincoln's ear. If you look at your penny and Honest Abe seems to have an extra earlobe, the coin is way more valuable than you'd think.

The mistake, which is known as a double die error, is most often seen on 1984 pennies but could be on other years as well. Since eight billion pennies were produced in 1984, chances are fairly high that you might have one with the "double ear error." A penny in mint condition with the mistake sold in 2009 for about $4,000, but even ones in not great condition are worth over $100.

This isn't the only reason a 1984 penny could be valuable. Here's what to look for on those pennies that make them have some value:

Are you sitting on thousands of dollars at home? It's possible. Plus, this isn't the only rare and valuable penny that you need to look out for. For example, the 1943 Copper Lincoln Cent could be worth upwards of $40,000 dollars or more. It's not just pennies, there are all kinds of rare and valuable coins that you might have and you don't even realize it.

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How To Spot Rare And Valuable Coins

You might be curious now, to see if you have some change at home, like this penny, that could be worth some money. Dump out that ole' piggy bank and try to spot something that looks out of place. You never know if you have a coin that could have an error on it. Here's what you should be looking for:

First, search the coins on both sides for a design that you have never seen, an error in which the printing looks weird, or something like the wrong denomination printed on the coin. Once you do that, search the full name and year of the coin on eBay, select “sold” items, and sort the results by “highest value” first.

A pawn shop will probably pay you for it, but chances are, you probably won't get the true value out of it by selling it there. If your coin fits that criteria and description, you could sell it on eBay or another online marketplace to coin collectors. Then, you can turn that quarter, dime, nickel, or penny into maybe a few hundred or thousand dollars!