Coin Roll Hunter Finds Gold in Cents! 1909-S VDB Discovered in Bank Box

Contender for "Find of the Year", Magers
at Lincoln Cent Resource's Forum found a
cache of wheat cents supplied by the local
bank.  The 1909-S you see before you was
the marquee piece in the lot.

Cent searching is fast becoming a more popular alternative to silver hunting in the same type boxes mainly in part of some recent media attention.  Prior to the Sacramento coin show in May 2014, members of the local coin club infused into circulation, four 1909-S Lincoln cents in the hopes of "juicing" up non-collector public hoopla in anticipation of the show weekend. Local news stations sent out a wire to the airwaves of the practice to great fanfare.  The 1909-S coins are valued around $80 a piece and provided all the buzz it needed.

As recent as the Sacramento Coin Club news, an avid penny box searcher in Arizona did what he always does on a given week, and that's head down to the local banking institution for several boxes of pennies.  The teller didn't supply the normal sealed box of cents, but instead a selection of customer wrapped rolls that he had taken in recently.  Usually, customer wrapped rolls have the better stuff in the them, but no one could explain what was to be found next.  With excitement, the first 50 rolls were solid wheat cents ranging from 1909 to the 50's. After this initial realization, Magers (Member of Lincoln Cent Resource forums who discovered the cache) drove back to the bank and picked up the 17 remaining rolls to much the same success in the findings. And after the dust settled, he uncovered what appeared to be an old collection that had been rolled up and turned in.  The resulting breakdown was staggering.  All coins were wheats with exception of a group of brilliant uncirculated 1959 and 1960 dated cents.  The big finds in the group were a nicely graded 1909-S VDB, a 99% off center specimen and a BU 1925-D.  Magers sent off the 1909-S VDB and it came back graded from PCGS as XF40.  PCGS price guide has this coin valued at $1175 in this grade!

Congrats to Magers, a fantastic find and it couldn't have happened to a better person!  Here's to many more years and "boxes" of success.

New Discovery Canadian Nickels Prompt Furious Search - 1932 Far 2 Variety

The last few months, I've been monitoring the activity of these new nickel varieties that were discovered in 2007.  According to an ongoing forum topic on coincommunity.com, there is a new variety that is taking the Canadian coin collecting community by storm, and it is the 1932 nickel with the "Far 2" numeral in the date. There are other variations of this same type in other dates in the series, most notably the 1926 semi key with a "far 6" in the date.  The "Far 2" variety is found in less than 2% of the current mintage of 1932 dated coins searched through.

How does this new find translate to current market demand?  Believe it or not, this is a surprising stat for such an "under the radar" date in Canada nickels.  Right now, supply is low enough that it will sustain a profitable price level until more collectors make it out into the hobby and then I would imagine this price to ascend.  Lower graded examples have sold in the $150-$200 range, but expect more in the $400-$700 arena for anything higher than an XF. The best method of cherrypicking these coins are in the bulk foreign coin bins or even in dealer backup supply.  Keep in mind, very few dealers know about this variety, so there is a great chance you will be able to obtain a relatively high grade example that is unattributed.  Please refer to the reference photo below for diagnostic information. And to become a part of the discussion on coincommunity.com, here is the link: http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=77970&whichpage=1