Becoming a millionaire with a single penny is possible thanks to the rare copies that continue in circulation. A few years ago, a man called Don Lutes Jr. rose to fame when he owned a penny that sold for $204,000 at an auction held by Heritage Auctions.
The piece was a 1943 Lincoln bronze cent, a coin that was with the man from 1947 to 2018, when he gave it to the auction house before he died. Proceeds went to the Berkshire Athenaeum Public Library in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where Lutes was born and raised.
Since the news spread around the country, thousands of Americans have begun searching their pockets for pennies that could be worth thousands of dollars, even millions. How do you know if you have one?
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The 1 cent coin that can be worth up to $1.7 million
The value of a penny, in reality, depends on its quality and rarity. The Don Lutes Jr. coin- a bronze Lincoln cent- was sold for such a huge amount because currently, only a handful of these exist. So far, 15 to 20 bronze Lincoln cents have been discovered. The most expensive sold for $1.7 million.
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The high value of this coin is due to the fact that the Mint stopped using bronze in pennies to be able to use the material for armed struggle. Since then, the manufacture of pennies has been carried out with zinc-coated steel plates, making the bronze Lincoln cent became “the most famous error coin in American numismatics”, according to David Stone, coin cataloguer at Heritage Auctions.
Due to its rarity and great value, there are several replicas circulating in the collectors’ market, so experts recommend doing the famous magnet test to corroborate its veracity: If the coin sticks, it is fake since it is not bronze.
