LMC "S" Mint's

I think the key date will either be the 1969 s DDO or the 1972 DDO. Or the 1960 D large over small date. Unless you are just talking straight up normal coins. The 1969 in higher grades. Remember though that if it becomes legal to melt down pennies, more people with save the S mint marks, possibly making the D and P more valuable. You just don't know what date will be a key date until it rises in value.

The S mint business strikes are from 1968-S to 1974-S. I think bu rolls of these Lincolns will take off someday ( I hope ). As I have at least 5 roll sets of the series.

Mintage numbers don't heavily play into a coins value. What plays into a coins value is how many pieces were saved in higher condition. Go to the Red Book and read the "element of rarity" section on page 27. It should help.

San Fran didn't mint any Lincolns for a long time prior to 1968. When the public became aware that they were going to make S mint cents again, there was a mad rush to acquire them in hopes they would be as valuable as the rarer, early S mint cents. Thusly, they were hoarded in huge numbers so today we have many BU coins available on the market for low prices.

By 1970 people soon realized the 1968S Lincolns weren't as valuable as speculators thought they might be and the mint kept producing millions of S mint cents. There was a lot less interest in hoarding the later coins (70-74S) so today we have less of them available (compared to the 68S) so the price is a bit higher.

On a side note, the thing to look for in the 1968S is full and completely formed steps. The mint tended to over-use the reverse dies and the fine detail in the steps is one of the first things to go. If you start paying attention to the issue, you'll quickly see this. Why on God's green earth nickels get so much attention for "full steps" but Memorial Cents do not is beyond me. It's much harder to find cents with full steps than you might think. With some years, it's completely impossible because the step detail was nearly gone from the master dies from producing so many working dies/coins.

Full steps is an important thing to me with Memorial cents. I'm always seeking coins with full steps and, as hard as I've worked on it over the years, my FS collection is FAR from complete. My hopes are that one day the TPG's and collectors of the world will recognize the value of finding Memorials with full steps.