Friday, October 23, 2009

Penny Watching


Got any old pennies in your car's ashtray or on top of your dresser? Take a closer look at them - they might be worth a few hundred dollars. A coin collector named Scott Travers bought a pretzel in Times Square a while back and paid for it, in part, with a rare 1914 penny worth $300. He also spent a 1909 penny - the first to feature Lincoln, on the occasion of the centennial of his birth - worth about $1,000 and a 1908 penny worth about $200.

The purpose of Travers' stunt was to foster the love of coin collecting in some unsuspecting change-recipient. It's not clear whether it worked, because no one has ever reported getting back one of those rare pennies. It's been three years now since they were put into circulation, and they can't have just disappeared.

If you're really lucky, you'll dig out of your pocket a 1943 penny made entirely of copper, which had been mostly taken out of circulation for the war effort. About 40 of them are known to exist. That one's worth about $200,000.

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