Attention Hoosiers: You Could Have a Penny Worth $60,000

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 $2,000 and I know that I have seen one that looks just like it in my coin collection.

Rare Penny Worth Up To $60,000

According to Heritage Auctions a 1943 Copper Lincoln Cent could be worth upwards of $40,000 dollars or more. Furthermore, Go Banking Rates noted that a rare 1909 Lincoln Penny with “VDB” on it sold at auction for $60,000 dollars. Who knew that one penny could be worth so much? But why are they so valuable?

The coin was designed by Victor David Brenner, who designed pennies for forty years, but none of those pennies are as valuable as the one he designed in 1009. You see, in 1909, he did something very special. Brenner printed his initials - VDB - on the back of the 1909 Lincoln Wheat cent.

According to the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS):

There were only 484,000 of the VDB pennies that were minted before the design was changed. If you find that you have one at home, you might have struck gold. According to The Sun, the VDB pennies range in value based on the grade and condition of the coin.

As far as the 1943 Copper Lincoln Cent goes, while it isn't worth as much as the VDB penny, it's still worth a lot. That's because most of the 1943 pennies were silverish in color, rather than the copper penny we are used to today. The reason behind them not using copper in these pennies is that during World War II copper was needed to make bullet shell casings. So to save copper most pennies in 1943 were zinc-plated steel to make more copper available for the war effort.

Depending on the condition of these pennies they could be worth even more than the values listed above. Worth taking the time to sort through your change, right?

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.

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!