1931 S Wheat Penny

There's a scene in the movie "Throw Momma from the Train" where loser Danny Devito is showing Billy Crystal his coin collection. They're all common dates in circulated condition, but they have special meaning to him: "And this penny is one my dad gave me on my 6th birthday. And this dime is one my grandpa gave me when I caught my first fish..."

You have one of the rarer coins in the Lincoln series, and it's in spectacular condition. You could easily get $125-150 for it. But would you want to? I feel the sentimental value is worth much more than the numismatic value. I agree, it might be a good idea to keep it in the same holder so you'll always have it as a connection to your dad. (And I certainly wouldn't send it to some impersonal coin grader who has no connection to your story.) To me, that's worth more than any amount of money in the world.

Hummm....on CT you said you bought it for "$20 at an estate sale". Watch what you say, us collectors get around and we don't like fish stories. Honesty will get you through life a LOT better than making stuff up.

As far as the coin, even with crappy pictures, I can see it's somewhere between 62-64RD and would be worth around $200. Better pictures out of the holder and cropped would allow us to make a better estimate.

Personally, I would have the coin sent in for grading - but more for preservation and encapsulation. If it was my passed father's, I would certainly not sell it.

If you dig around here some and find you're really not interested in this hobby, I suppose it's alright to pass it to somebody who will appreciate it. The problem there is, once you've sold it, it's gone and you can't get it back. Your father held on to it and passed it on to you rather than some cash for a reason. Heirlooms can be special things. If you have something (or things) of his that mean a lot more to you, there's no reason to get too hung up on keeping it.

If you can afford to send it in to a reputable grader for encapsulation and hold on to it, you can always make that choice down the road. If you choose to not encapsulate it, it may turn from RD (bad)... (or worse).

If you choose to sell it now, you'll never have that choice again. I'd like to think that if I gave something of value to my son, he'd either hold on to it to pass down to his son or sell it at just the right time to be able to have something very special to him - not just for cash or for something that would be gone quickly.

Good luck with your decision! And welcome. Poke around a bit, there's a lot of neat people and a lot of neat coins to enjoy. I picked up coin collecting because I wanted to be in better touch with a small hobby of my Grandfather's. It's a neat connection I enjoy with him now long after he's gone.

Wow, why do people come on here and make lies like this? We will still help no matter where you got it or how much you paid. That was a waste having everyone feel sorry for your dad and us telling you to keep it for sentimental reasons. Telling the truth would have skipped all of that BS.

Oh for the love...is it really that hard to simply ask for opinions of a coin without any kind of back story let alone a lie?

Not even going to bother with input now.

I agree. Our forum is willing to give advice no matter what... And I also wouldn't get it slabbed before selling. That just takes away more money from potential profit.

I was going to say you are way off on price hesgut, but it seems like prices went down since I bought my au58 1931 s. I think I paid $120 and it was a pretty good deal at the time.

I still think his coin would definitely sell for more than $120, but maybe not $200 like I originally estimated. But you know, better pictures may be all the difference. Who knows how good that thing looks in hand.

What say ye Baseball111 ?
John1

I'm just poking my nose in here to remind y'all (broadly) that this is a family-friendly forum....

Carry on.