How did THIS get in the dollar box?

Holy Moly! If that is genuine, you get the official, "YOU SUCK!" award for the month. Phenomonal find! :-)

Hey - the guy who found that '92 close-AM deserves it before me!

It is. It only bought a penny!

Thanks for all the encouragement, everyone! (Cherrypickers unite!)

I edited my post with slightly better pics. I'm hopeful it's genuine, but even these better pics are probably not conclusive. It looks good to my untrained eye (though I read with interest the recent topic regarding the added 'S', and this 'S' has the correct serifs.) It was accompanied in the dollar box with some really nice IHC from 1906-08. It would surprise me if a fake made its way into that batch, but then again it would surprise me to find it at all!

For the past couple years I've kept my eye open hoping someone missed a mintmark on an 08S. (Mine is dented, and needs upgrading). But I never thought I'd find an 09S!

I'm telling you guys, finding tougher D- and S-mint US coins is easier than it should be here in Western Canada. I scored an 11-S and several 31-Ds in small wheat bags recently.

Regarding grade, I think it falls short of EF, but "Liberty" is full and I'd give it VF. No big deal, though, since later IHC didn't circulate much. Grade doesn't seem to deliver much of a premium.

I found an 08s in a dollar box a couple months back, but this, Wow! SUPER FIND!

from what I can see, the S is in one of the two documented positions.
If it all checks out, then what an awesome find!
This looks good...could be a VF30 or possibly better.

CND: If in Kentucky, that's actually pretty amazing too. I don't suspect very many S-mint IHC made it east of the Mississippi.

bibd,

Yes, it was at my usual coin shop haunt. Since it was the dealer I deal with the most, I did point the coin out to her, but she did the right thing and said that if it was in there, it was mine for the dollar. There were a whole bunch of other 20th century VF and EF coins in that box, including a 1909 in EF.