Red Vs Brown

Thanks for the input, I think I may narrow my search to the RB in that case. joker, I had an album many years ago similar to yours filled with Lincoln cents, when I came across the 1909S VDB I felt that the price was too out of range and was a little heart broken to realize that even in a whole life time I would never be able to collect every coin so moved to type collecting and now only slabbed originals. I thought since this coin was a turning point maybe I would add it as my Lincoln Cent type now decades later. Sorry for rambling but to answer your question, no its not for an album, but now I will familiarize myself with the 4 obverse dies thanks again.

With moderns, if the coins are red (or blast white for silver), they had probably been saved all that time (though maybe being in a hoard might count as "saved" - it seriously depends on the location). It's very rare but possible (as it also goes with a higher grade) and thus valuable.
With older coins, there's virtually no chance that they were saved by a collector (as coin collectors didn't exist back then), and hoards don't tend to have quite as shiny coins due to preservation conditions - so any and all blast white or red coins are cleaned, and probably badly so. That, or they're modern fakes

I'm sure that there still are those one or two or three geniunely red (or blast white) ancient coins that just happened to be preserved exactly the proper way and are still the original color. They probably reside in a museum somewhere, and if ever sold would likely bring many millions of dollars. But nobody's going to seriously sell those...

Well the coin sold on heritage in 2000 which would account for the price difference.

The core of my families coin collection, resident with my Uncle at this time, goes back to my Great Great Great Great Grandfather, who was Treasurer to the Shaw of Persia in the late 18th and early 19th Century. In the early 19th Century the family moved to Russia ( Georgia), and after the Revolution to the US by way of China. I have a single coin from the collection of my 4th Great Grandfather, a coin of Celicia, that part of my family being Armenian. I also have coins from my Great Grandfather that he bought in China in the 1920s.

So you are correct in saying there are collections that span generations; even though ours was only begun in the 1780s and not the 1600s. I guess that makes us newbies! lol

Very, very nice specimen! That is one to be proud of for sure!

Very nice S-VDB. Good grade and eye appeal, and it still looks red.

Copper coins can change from Red to Brownish either rapidly or not at all. Mostly pending on the method of storage. I've had many Copper coins in Albums for many, many years and they have not changed at all. They are all kept in Albums and then in Zip Lock bags. On the other hand, I've found coins that were obviously cleaned to the point of looking like a Proof. Putting them on a kithchen window sill, on a block of raw wood, for several months, turned them as brown as possible. Making them appear to be normal, almost.
For example these have been in Albums for many, many years now and still look as they did when I put them there.