This Is Why Coins Should Be Handled By The Rims Or With Gloves. 1909 VDB LWC

My dad acquired it in the early '70s, and it had the print then. So yes, the defilement goes back many years.

But it has a really nice VDB!

Yep, not much can help this one. It would be better if it were all brown now.

we can use that one as the poster child

Probably done by a bank teller or the first person who handled
the coin . Whoever is Long dead !.
Maybe run the prints .could be a famous bank robber or
similar . Get the Feds involved!
Stuff like this is very common if you see enough coins .
This is certainly nothing to lose sleep over .#128483;#128110;#8205;#9794;#65039;

This coin was handled by dirty fingers while it still had a decent red freshly minted luster. At the time, a 1909 Cent would have not had a value much above face, and would have been recognized as valuable by very few people.

An MS+ copper coin with a rich chocolate patina is much more resistant to fingerprinting

Nevertheless, it always makes sense to handle coins by their edge only, irrespective of the patina.
Every coin that I get immediately goes into a 2x2 so my dirty fingers don't get onto the coin, and I write the identification on the card, with price and date acquired. Have been doing this for decades.