A picture of my penny (worth more than a penny)
So, my friends Alexa, Amanda and Nichole have gotten me hooked on the refreshingly scientific and surprisingly funny show, Bones, starring Emily Deschanel. After watching a couple of episodes with them from the latest season, I have borrowed Amanda's DVDs of the earlier seasons. While on my journey this morning, to finishing up season one, I watched an episode that involved the murder of a man from the 1950s who happened to be carrying some rare and expensive coins on his person.
Among these was the old (or wheat) one cent penny, specifically from 1943 worth about $100,00 today. The value of said penny is so high because in 1943, due to the war effort, copper was in very high demand. Therefore, the United States began making pennies out of steel to conserve copper. Accordingly, found pennies struck out of copper from 1943 are extremely rare because they only made a handful (12, to be exact, according to the show). However, I looked this information up on the interwebs, and a 1943 penny made from copper is very, very, very rare.
All of this made me remember a wheat penny that I had been holding onto since I found it many years ago. I really like pennies for some reason and have a lot of them in my college apartment, but a lot more at home. About a year ago, I wanted to find my wheat penny to show someone but I couldn't find it, fearing that I had spent it. Today, though, I was inspired to search again because I've been known to overlook things.
And, after about ten minutes of flipping Abe's profile over to reveal whether or not it was the lincoln memorial or two ears of wheat, I finally found it and held it up in the air! While I did not shout "Eureka!" or anything like that, I did breath a sigh of relief seconds before bring the penny close to my heart. For, as many of you are probably wondering, I wondered how much my penny was worth.
The cool facts are that it is from 1958, with a tiny D on it (meaning it was minted in Denver, Colorado) and it is not that dirty at all. It is also older than both of my parents and me, of course. The even cooler fact is that it is worth more than $0.01. In fact, it is worth about $0.03! While I am disappointed that it is not worth hundreds of dollars, I wasn't really expecting it. I am happy with the fact that it is worth more than most pennies. I don't think I would have sold it, though, even if it were worth the amount of my college education. Instead, I am going to wait and give it to some deserving niece, nephew, or small child (God forbid it be one of my own) and tell them to wait until it (the penny, not the child, folks) is at least more than 100 years old so that it may be worth substantially more. Until then, I will be keeping it safe so that it appears as clean and as unused as possible.
Good day,
Monica
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