The Unknown History of Pennies

You probably know about Lincoln cent and maybe you think they are not important to you because they is almost worthless. But that is not true, Lincoln cents have been struck since 1909. So, they have a long history.

In 1905, U.S. hired Augustus Saint-Gaudens to work on a new mint design for pennies. He designed many coins and he designed Double Eagle, too. He decided to design Lincoln’s head on penny because it was Lincoln’s 100th birthday in 1909. In 1907, Saint-Gaudens passed away before pennies were minted. In 1909, U.S. started to mint them and called them Wheat pennies because their reverse has two wheat ears.

In 1959, Wheat pennies were replaced with Lincoln’s Memorial for Lincoln’s 150th birthday. In 2009, Lincoln’s 200th birthday, the government decided to mint four new reverse designs. In 2010, the government hired a new coin designer and minted the new pennies and called them Union Shield.

I think the Lincoln cent will stop being minted because the process of minting them is more expensive than one cent. In Canada, they stopped make them. So, maybe U.S. will stop minting them.

The 1913 Liberty Head Nickels

The 1913 Liberty Head Nickel

A limited number of 1913 Liberty Head Nickels were produced. So, there are 5 of 1913 Liberty Head Nickels that exist today.

In early 1913, the government minted them, and then they decided to introduce new nickels and replace the Liberty Head Nickels with Indian Head Nickels.

The 1913 Indian Head Nickel

Then the government decided to give away the Liberty Head Nickels to their best employee in 1913, Samuel Brown.

Louis E. Eliasberg

Samuel Brown decided to sell them in January 1924. The first person who purchased from him was Colonel E.H.R Green. He kept the coin until he died in 1936. His things were sold at an auction. Two coin dealers who brought his coin, then sold it to a famous coin collector, Louis E. Eliasberg. When he died, his coin went to Bowers and Merena  Auctions for $1,485,000, then it was auctioned off again in March 2001.







The price climbed up to $1,840,00. In May 2005, a person brought this coin for $4,150,000. In 2007, another person from California brought this coin for 5 million dollars.