found a cool penny today

[jus85411]

this is random i know, but im bored and feel like sharing. usually when i have accrued a bunch of change in my pocket i sort through it and put the pennies in a separate jar, actually two smaller jars, but when they fill up i just take it to the bank when im stopping for depositing a paycheck and use the free coin counter/redeemer

so this morning when i got to work i went through the change taking out pennies and i saw one that was strange looking and immediately thought " someone gave me a foreign penny!!!" which most likely would have been a canadian penny. i take a closer look and it says "United States of America" and has "One Cent" on the back

http://www.coinstudy.com/1886-indian-he ... value.html



that is actually what i found in my pocket. an 1886 Indian Head Penny. i thought it was pretty cool. i would say mine is Type 1 and close to the "VF" condition as you can see detail on the headband, after i read that its supposed to say "Liberty" i could slightly make it out on the headband. for being this old, it is in great condition. the edges arent entirely round, there are tiny divits in it, but nothing major by any means

[Flutter]

That is so cool!

[Arny]

are you going to sell it?

[jus85411]

i dont think i will sell it, just put it aside and try to preserve how it is currently. maybe just rinse the little specs of dirt off it. im not trying to remove any tarnish as i read it will reduce the value of it so i wont use coca cola, vinegar etc. would be one heck of a profit margin though i just thought it was really cool to find, pretty rare too. i wouldnt say it would go for as high as the Type 1 VF condition price, but pretty close as it is in pretty decent condition

[GSPicthus]

That is really cool! I don't collect coins but when I do find and old one I keep it and I like to imagine all this coin must have seen. What may have been purchased with it in its 125 years of life! Especially when things actually used to cost a penny.

You may want to google "significant events of 1886" give you some idea of what was going on when that penny was created. And thanks for sharing your find with us.

[jus85411]

thats a good idea, i will google that, thanks for the idea! im not a collector either, but i do like finding things like this. when i was younger i had foreign coins from all over europe/asia that my step dad gave me. now my collection is just leftover money from when i went to ireland. i wanted to keep one of each smaller bills and a bunch of coins from .01 to 2 euro

[J-P]

save it for the grand-kids It will make a great story! Better than the watch up the @#$%%@$ story

[jus85411]

thats classic! i dont plan on having children, but when handing this down (probably to my younger sisters) i will make up a bogus story about the penny and how i got it

[SelenaR]

Such a pretty cool penny! By the way, did you know that Canada has produced no pennies since last year, and now it has formally stopped circulating them as well? I heard that a comparable move has been debated in the United States for additional than 20 years, but a decision still remains in limbo.