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Here’s the thing about rare wheat pennies ...Rare wheat pennies? When I was a kid, just learning about coins, starting my coin collection by going through piggy banks and checking my change – I’d never heard of "wheat pennies", rare or otherwise!No, I didn’t grow up prior to 1909. So far, I haven’t made that kind of medical history. Really, a kid in the 1950’s (that’s me!) only saw "Lincoln pennies" – and until 1959 each had two rather simplified ears of wheat on the reverse – no big deal. In ’59 those wheat ears were replaced with a realistic rendition of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. It was the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Some years later I first heard the phrase wheat penny or wheat back pennies, and it was many years after that when I heard someone speak of them as rare. The astonishing thing about wheat pennies nowadays is that the non-collecting public seems to consider any wheat penny a rarity! Many millions of Lincoln pennies were struck over the half century preceding the arrival of the Lincoln Memorial reverse. However, the upsurge of interest in coin collecting among the generation known as Baby Boomers has effectively removed the wheat cents from daily circulation. Which wheat pennies are really the rare wheat pennies?In chronological order, the 1909 S VDB, 1914-D, 1922-D (no mintmark), 1931-S, 1943 (copper), and the 1955 double die.Of these, the only one I ever owned was a 1931-S… well, not really, but I thought I did at the time!
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