If you are thinking about collecting coins, the best place to start is with the Lincoln Cent. The reason for this is cost! “A penny here a penny there” or “a penny found is a penny earned.” Collecting Lincoln Cents doesn’t require much capital and you will be gaining experience of coin collecting at a low cost. It is also a low cost activity your can encourage your children to get into.

Things You Will Need

100 Paper Dixie Cups or reusable plastic cups
Coin Folders
Pennies (Lots and Lots of Pennies)
Magnifying Glass

How To Collect Pennies

Step 1: Go to the store such as Hobby Lobby, Meijer or a hobby specialty store in your area and purchase a coin folder. There are various types including Whitman coin folders and H.E. Harris coin folders.  The folders cost around three or four dollars. You can also search at local flea markets, yard sales and rummage sales. The cost is sometimes lower or you can acquire gently used products.

NOTE: The fist folder you should get is dated 1941 to 1974. The best place to start is 1959. The Lincoln Memorial Cent was introduced in 1959 to mark the 150th Anniversary of President Lincoln’s birth. Another reason for starting at 1959 is the Lincoln Memorial cents are everywhere. You can find them on the ground, on your dresser, and in your spare coin jar or that ever so loving penny jar!

Step 2: Get out your 51 Dixie Cups and spread them out in rows. Take a marker and write the dates on the cups. Each cup will have a year (1959, 1960, 1961,…2010).

Step 3: Once your cups are labeled you need to get out your pennies. If you don’t have a large amount of pennies to sort through, you can go to your bank (new banking regulations mandate you have an account to exchange currency) and “buy” a box of pennies. A roll of pennies cost $0.50 and a box is $25.00 which is equal to 2,500 pennies to go through. Once you have your pennies, sort through them and place each penny in the corresponding labeled cup. For example all 1995 pennies are placed in the cup with 1995 written on it.

Step 4: Once you have a large quantity of pennies sorted out, you can begin sorting through to find the highest quality penny to place in your folder.

NOTE: Some of the pennies will have a letter (D,P, or S) below the date. This is called a mint mark and tells what city the penny was minted in: D is for Denver, P is for Philadelphia and S is for San Francisco. You will notice that many coins minted during 1965 through 1967 do not have a mint mark. These coins were minted in Philadelphia. You will still see D’s and even an S during this time period.

Step 5: After you have pennies for each year, you can select 2 additional cups per year to sort out the mint marks.

Step 6: Once your pennies are sorted you will want to examine the pennies you have chosen. Look carefully to find the one with the fewest blemishes such as deep gouges, scratches, or crooked/off centered impressions. Use your magnifying glass to look closely at your pennies. They won’t be perfect after nearly a half-century of use, but at least you can find the best one possible.

Step 7: Take your chosen pennies and insert them into your coin collecting folder. Make sure to place the penny in the correct year and mint mark, then try to place the coin in straight to improve the look of your collection.

NOTE: Even though you try to find the best looking coin, sometimes it seems impossible. Simply take the best one available at the time and you can update it later when you find a better looking coin.

Step 8: Clean up your area. Because this is the start of a hobby, you won’t simply complete your search in one day. To clean up, you can stack your Dixie cups by 10′s keeping the years together. For example, you could take 1970 through 1979 and stack one cup on top of the next. Then when you are ready to work again, you can get out the decade you need to sort through rather than getting all of the coins out at once.

Have fun becoming a coin collector. Before you know it you will be calling yourself a Numismatists (a student or collector of coins, money, and the systems of payment such as barter) and wanting to join the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG)!

History of the Lincoln Cent

The portrait, crafted by Victor D. Brenner, made its debut in 1909 as a wheat cent. It was done in celebration of Lincoln’s 100th birthday and was the first presidential likeness to appear on a circulating U.S. coin. It has not been changed in more than 95 years and holds the record for being the longest-running  design on any U.S. coin in history (Red Book, A Guide Book of United States Coins).
The reverse was changed to the Lincoln Memorial design in 1959. Frank Gasparro designed the new reverse. Mint marks D For Denver and S for San Francisco Appear below the date. As mentioned, all Philadelphia issues and all coins dated 1965 through 1967 show no mint marks (Red Book, A Guide Book of United States Coins).

Are you already a Numismatists? Do you have any advice for beginners? What are your thoughts on becoming a coin collector? We would love to hear you tips and tricks on coin collecting, feel free to comment.