By Mark Ferguson
COIN VALUES Market Analyst
As baby boomers become empty nesters, retirees and born-again collectors, they're dusting off their old blue Whitman coin albums, especially those holding Lincoln cents, and are beginning again where they left off years earlier to complete those collections.
New collectors who've begun with the
State Quarter dollars are also taking an interest in the United States' longest running series, the
Lincoln Cent, now 98 years old.
Registry collecting has propelled values for the highest graded, gem-quality Lincoln cents to lofty levels, but nowadays the collecting trend is moving back to the good old-fashioned collecting of circulated early Lincoln cents that collectors no longer routinely find in circulation. Collectors and hoarders have removed most Wheat Heads reverse cents from circulation, leaving behind primarily the Lincoln Memorial reverse cents (struck since 1959).
Circulated Lincoln cents are popular for many reasons. They are more affordable than Mint State coins. Mint State examples stand to lose a greater percentage of their value from such problems as spots, tarnish and fingerprints than circulated Lincoln cents with the same problems.
Values for circulated key dates, like the 1909-S Lincoln, V.D.B. cent and 1914-D
Lincoln Cent, have been moving higher gradually, right along with the bull market (which coins in general have experienced since 2003), so they have escaped the current rapid rises of many of the other early Lincoln cents. But more recently, the semi-key dates, like the early San Francisco Mint cents from the 1910-S coin through the 1915-S coin, are climbing in all circulated grades.
Interest has also been growing for many common dates, especially in the Extremely Fine and About Uncirculated grades. Typical examples of higher circulated grade value changes are the 1911-S and 1912-S Lincoln cents, which rose from $50 and $55 to $75 each in Extremely Fine.
Many lower grade early Lincoln cents have also climbed in their values. Examples include the 1915-S
Lincoln Cent, up recently from $9 in Good to $20; the 1924-D cent, up from $90 in Good to $125; the 1926-S cent, up from $3 to $10 in Good; and the 1931-D
Lincoln Cent, that went to $4 from $6 in this same grade.
It is also interesting to note that many collectors who are buying much more expensive and exotic coins are also collecting circulated Lincoln cents, as they did as kids. Nostalgia lives in the hearts of many collectors. Such collecting also allows them to enjoy the collecting bug with other family members (some affluent baby boomers who may specialize in more expensive series walk coin show bourse floors with their children and grandchildren buying $2 circulated Lincoln cents).
As we approach the centennial anniversary of the
Lincoln Cent in 2009, expect interest to continue growing in this series and anticipate future higher values as well. Greater demand for the circulated examples is causing dealers to raise their buy prices in attempts to find problem-free examples, which causes retail values to heighten. On the highest end of the grading scale, the full Mint red MS-66, MS-67, MS-68 and higher grade pieces are finding higher levels because of auction competition and registry collecting competition.
Posted 07/21/2007 2:10 pm
