I went "all-in" on equipment to make my life ALOT easier.
I have posted in here about what I like to use, and it has made all the difference in the world.
I not only collect coins, I roll hunt, bag hunt, buy and sell coins as well. Over the past five months, my son and I have gone through over 50,000 BU Lincoln Memorial cents looking for RPM's
DDO's and
DDR's. Try that with a Loupe or something that you have to struggle with to get a good image.
I understand that people have budgets, I do as well.
But My personal time is important, and if I have tasks to do, I like to get through them as complete and accurate as I can.
I buy quicker than I can possibly go through all these coins, but I majke progress every night. This weekend, by myself, I went through 46 rolls of BU Lincoln cents, because of the comfortability of my setup. Typically I can do more over a weekend, but its Spring and I have my "self inflicted Honey Do list" to complete. = )
In any event, with the Wheatbacks, the Dead give away for me are the egg shaped dots and the double wide leg of the "L". As Coop said, the "U's" are typically thicker at the bottom, but sometimes I run into a few where the "U's" are inconsistent and I have to scratch my head and wonder why.
I think the $145.00
AmScope Stereo microscope is a great investment to self verify a lot of these coins. I have the 3.5 to 30x stereo binocular version.
My son and I use it religiously and it is the prime microscope for shooting absolutely incredible pictures through.