The annual Penny Harvest is now underway with an estimated 500,000 students participating in the 19th year of its operation.
Penny Harvest Field at Rockefeller Center in 2007 (Photos courtesy of Common Cents©)
Schools across the nation have signed on to take part in the activity by allowing their students to take an active roll in the process. Through the use of adult coaches, peer leaders, assemblies, etc., kids are asked to volunteer their time to help raise money for their community, one penny at a time.
Those who do participate then go home and ask their family, friends, and neighbors for loose change (as well as donate some themselves) and begin to collect it to be eventually turned back in to their school. Once the coins are compiled, the funds are set aside while those same students take an active part in deciding what do to with the money. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday, August 2, 1909, people lined up at banks and other distribution points in America’s major cities. It was an event like the country has never seen before. For the first time in the United State’s history, a coin minted for circulation was to carry the portrait of a real person. Sure, the US Mint produced a coin with other portraits, but they were commemoratives and not intended for circulation, even though some did circulate.
But this was different. This was the portrait of one of our greatest presidents. Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president, was being honored on the cent the year the country celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth.
The new Lincoln Head Cent featured a portrait by Lithuanian immigrant, Victor David Brenner. Brenner, who came to the United States in 1890, learned engraving in New York City and spent the rest of his life honoring his adopted home with beautiful portraits of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and other leaders.
Even with the excitement the release was not without controversy. Almost instantly, the public did not like the prominence of the artist’s initials "V.D.B." on the reverse of the coin. On August 5, 1909, Treasury Secretary Franklin MacVeagh ordered production halted in order to remove the initials from the coin’s reverse. Read the rest of this entry »
The United States Mint on Tuesday officially announced the release date for two-roll sets of the newly designed Lincoln Cent Formative Years — the second of four pennies to launch in 2009.
The set is priced at $8.95, plus $4.95 for shipping and handling, and will be available at noon ET on Thursday, May 14. There is an order limit of five sets per household.
Like the Lincoln Log Cabin rolls released March 13, the latest offering will includes a roll of 50 coins from Denver with the “D” mintmark and another roll from Philadelphia, where the coins do not carry mintmarks. Read the rest of this entry »
The 2009 Lincoln Cent Birthplace coin — the first redesigned Lincoln cent in 50 years — went into circulation on the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, Feb. 12, and is now available directly from the US Mint in a two-roll set.
The Mint is offering a roll from Denver and Philadelphia for $8.95, plus $4.95 for shipping and handling. It has also placed a limit of five each per household. Read the rest of this entry »
Introductory US Mint proof and uncirculated Abraham Lincoln Silver Dollar prices end on Monday, March 16, at 5:00 pm ET. Prices will increase from $37.95 to $41.95 for the proof and from $31.95 to $33.95 for the uncirculated.
Getting the commemorative coins at their lowest prices is undoubtedly a call to action for buying now. But perhaps more compelling is the possibility that the Mint could stop selling one or both coins before Monday even arrives, or very shortly thereafter.
Why? Because the coins are near their sellout levels. Read the rest of this entry »
The first redesigned 2009 Lincoln Cent will be released in a two-roll set on Friday, March 13, the United States Mint said in a press release Monday.
Coin collectors (and the public enlarge) will be able to buy the first of the four new 2009 Lincoln Pennies — all of which celebrate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth and the 100 anniversary of the cent — for $8.95, plus $4.95 for shipping and handling.
The set includes a roll of 50 coins from Denver with the "D" mintmark and another roll from Philadelphia, where the coins do not carry mintmarks.
Read the rest of this entry »
This article was first published on the CoinNews sister site, 2009 Lincoln Pennies.
The United States Mint today updated its Product Release Schedule and has added slots for 2009 Lincoln Penny Rolls.
Here is the schedule (note the general dates for the final three pennies):
Up until today, the Mint had not publicly indicated that 2009 Lincoln rolls would be offered. However, the difficulty in finding the new pennies at banks or in circulation led many collectors to assume such an offering would eventually come. Read the rest of this entry »
Coinworks has just sold the Proof 1923 Halfpenny for a world record price of $500,000. The only proof example of Australia’s rarest halfpenny available to collectors, the iconic copper was quickly snapped up by a prominent Sydney family.
The family’s story is not merely one of Australian history, but how a passion for collecting can comfortably co-exist with informed investment.
One member of the family spearheads the interest in rare coins, that interest commencing at the age of seven when the grandmother died, leaving a small tin of sovereigns. The grandmother’s gift seeded a collecting spirit that endures to this day; the sovereigns still part of the family’s holding.
The family members share a passion for history, their forebears having arrived as free settlers in the penal colony of New South Wales in 1855. Driven by that passion and their quest for rarity, the family has acquired some of Australia’s greatest coins, guided in their choices by Coinworks. Read the rest of this entry »
(Edina, Minnesota) — The following brief statement was issued today by the Professional Numismatists Guild regarding the introduction of the first of four new reverse side designs of the familiar Lincoln cent going into circulation this year.
"Based on the overwhelming success of the recently-ended 50 states quarters program, I expect the excellent new Lincoln cents designs will be quite popular with the public. But based on their utter lack of buying power and the costs to produce them, I wonder how much longer pennies will continue to be minted," said Gary Adkins of Edina, Minnesota, President of the Professional Numismatists Guild (www.PNGdealers.com), a non-profit organization composed of the country’s top rare coin dealers.
"The United States stopped making half-cent denomination coins in 1857. The time may be near for halting production of billions of cents every year."
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Read the rest of this entry »
The first 2009 Lincoln cent launch and the remaining three penny designs were captured today by a 49 second video clip from the Associated Press.
The new cents commemorate the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, which is today, and the 100th anniversary of the first issued 1909 Lincoln cent.
The embedded video provides a detailed 3D-view of each coin, offering an unparalleled perspective. Read the rest of this entry »
