All coins

Lincoln Wheat Cent Dates & Mintmarks

All 140 issues of the wheat-reverse series, 1909 through 1958. Four of them are from 1909 alone: Victor David Brenner's VDB initials sat prominently on the reverse of the first cents, public objection got them removed within weeks, and both mints struck the coin with and without them. The wheat reverse gave way to the Lincoln Memorial in 1959.

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140

Date/mint combinations

1

Key dates

under 750k struck

3

Semi-keys

under 2.5M struck

3

Mints

P, D, S

All 140 issues

Lincoln wheat cent mintages by date and mintmark, sorted by date.
DateMintMintageRankTierNotes
1909-PPhiladelphia72,700,00065Common date2,618 proofs · see note
1909-P VDBPhiladelphia27,995,00037Common date1 documented variety · 1,194 proofs
1909-SSan Francisco1,825,0004Semi-key
1909-S VDBSan Francisco484,0001Key date
1910-PPhiladelphia146,798,81387Common date2,405 proofs · see note
1910-SSan Francisco6,045,00012Common date
1911-DDenver12,672,00021Common date
1911-PPhiladelphia101,176,05476Common date2,411 proofs · see note
1911-SSan Francisco4,026,0006Common date
1912-DDenver10,411,00018Common date
1912-PPhiladelphia68,150,91563Common date2,145 proofs · see note
1912-SSan Francisco4,431,0008Common date
1913-DDenver15,804,00027Common date
1913-PPhiladelphia76,529,50469Common date2,848 proofs · see note
1913-SSan Francisco6,101,00013Common date
1914-DDenver1,193,0003Semi-key
1914-PPhiladelphia75,237,06768Common date1,365 proofs · see note
1914-SSan Francisco4,137,0007Common date
1915-DDenver22,050,00031Common date
1915-PPhiladelphia29,090,97040Common date1,150 proofs · see note
1915-SSan Francisco4,833,00011Common date
1916-DDenver35,956,00046Common date
1916-PPhiladelphia131,832,62780Common date1,050 proofs · see note
1916-SSan Francisco22,510,00032Common date
1917-DDenver55,120,00060Common date
1917-PPhiladelphia196,429,785100Common date1 documented variety
1917-SSan Francisco32,620,00043Common date
1918-DDenver47,830,00055Common date
1918-PPhiladelphia288,104,634115Common date
1918-SSan Francisco34,680,00045Common date
1919-DDenver57,154,00061Common date
1919-PPhiladelphia392,021,000124Common date
1919-SSan Francisco139,760,00084Common date
1920-DDenver49,280,00056Common date
1920-PPhiladelphia310,165,000118Common date
1920-SSan Francisco46,220,00053Common date
1921-PPhiladelphia39,157,00048Common date
1921-SSan Francisco15,274,00026Common date
1922-DDenver7,160,00015Common date2 documented varieties · see note
1923-PPhiladelphia74,723,00066Common date
1923-SSan Francisco8,700,00016Common date
1924-DDenver2,520,0005Common date
1924-PPhiladelphia75,178,00067Common date
1924-SSan Francisco11,696,00020Common date
1925-DDenver22,580,00033Common date
1925-PPhiladelphia139,949,00085Common date
1925-SSan Francisco26,380,00035Common date
1926-DDenver28,020,00038Common date
1926-PPhiladelphia157,088,00090Common date
1926-SSan Francisco4,550,00010Common date
1927-DDenver27,170,00036Common date
1927-PPhiladelphia144,440,00086Common date
1927-SSan Francisco14,276,00022Common date
1928-DDenver31,170,00042Common date
1928-PPhiladelphia134,116,00081Common date
1928-SSan Francisco17,266,00028Common date
1929-DDenver41,730,00051Common date
1929-PPhiladelphia185,262,00095Common date
1929-SSan Francisco50,148,00057Common date
1930-DDenver40,100,00049Common date
1930-PPhiladelphia157,415,00091Common date
1930-SSan Francisco24,286,00034Common date
1931-DDenver4,480,0009Common date
1931-PPhiladelphia19,396,00029Common date
1931-SSan Francisco866,0002Semi-key
1932-DDenver10,500,00019Common date
1932-PPhiladelphia9,062,00017Common date
1933-DDenver6,200,00014Common date
1933-PPhiladelphia14,360,00023Common date
1934-DDenver28,446,00039Common date
1934-PPhiladelphia219,080,000105Common date
1935-DDenver47,000,00054Common date
1935-PPhiladelphia245,388,000106Common date
1935-SSan Francisco38,702,00047Common date
1936-DDenver40,620,00050Common date
1936-PPhiladelphia309,632,000117Common date1 documented variety · 5,569 proofs
1936-SSan Francisco29,130,00041Common date
1937-DDenver50,430,00058Common date
1937-PPhiladelphia309,170,000116Common date9,320 proofs
1937-SSan Francisco34,500,00044Common date
1938-DDenver20,010,00030Common date
1938-PPhiladelphia156,682,00089Common date14,734 proofs
1938-SSan Francisco15,180,00025Common date
1939-DDenver15,160,00024Common date
1939-PPhiladelphia316,466,000120Common date13,520 proofs
1939-SSan Francisco52,070,00059Common date
1940-DDenver81,390,00070Common date
1940-PPhiladelphia586,810,000128Common date15,872 proofs
1940-SSan Francisco112,940,00077Common date
1941-DDenver128,700,00079Common date
1941-PPhiladelphia887,018,000135Common date21,100 proofs
1941-SSan Francisco92,360,00073Common date
1942-DDenver206,698,000102Common date
1942-PPhiladelphia657,796,000130Common date32,600 proofs
1942-SSan Francisco85,590,00072Common date
1943-DDenver217,660,000103Common date
1943-PPhiladelphia684,628,670131Common date1 documented variety · see note
1943-SSan Francisco191,550,00098Common date
1944-DDenver430,578,000126Common date
1944-PPhiladelphia1,435,000,000140Common date1 documented variety · see note
1944-SSan Francisco282,760,000113Common date
1945-DDenver266,268,000110Common date
1945-PPhiladelphia1,040,515,000137Common date
1945-SSan Francisco181,770,00093Common date
1946-DDenver315,690,000119Common date
1946-PPhiladelphia991,655,000136Common date
1946-SSan Francisco198,100,000101Common date
1947-DDenver194,750,00099Common date
1947-PPhiladelphia190,555,00097Common date
1947-SSan Francisco99,000,00075Common date
1948-DDenver172,637,50092Common date
1948-PPhiladelphia317,570,000121Common date
1948-SSan Francisco81,735,00071Common date
1949-DDenver153,132,50088Common date
1949-PPhiladelphia217,775,000104Common date
1949-SSan Francisco64,290,00062Common date
1950-DDenver334,950,000123Common date
1950-PPhiladelphia272,635,000111Common date51,386 proofs
1950-SSan Francisco118,505,00078Common date
1951-DDenver625,355,000129Common date
1951-PPhiladelphia284,576,000114Common date57,500 proofs
1951-SSan Francisco136,010,00082Common date
1952-DDenver746,130,000133Common date
1952-PPhiladelphia186,775,00096Common date81,980 proofs
1952-SSan Francisco137,800,00483Common date
1953-DDenver700,515,000132Common date
1953-PPhiladelphia256,755,000109Common date128,800 proofs
1953-SSan Francisco181,835,00094Common date
1954-DDenver251,552,500107Common date
1954-PPhiladelphia71,640,05064Common date233,300 proofs
1954-SSan Francisco96,190,00074Common date
1955-DDenver563,257,500127Common date
1955-PPhiladelphia330,580,000122Common date1 documented variety · 378,200 proofs · see note
1955-SSan Francisco44,610,00052Common date
1956-DDenver1,098,201,100139Common date
1956-PPhiladelphia420,745,000125Common date669,384 proofs
1957-DDenver1,051,342,000138Common date
1957-PPhiladelphia282,540,000112Common date1,247,952 proofs
1958-DDenver800,953,300134Common date
1958-PPhiladelphia252,525,000108Common date875,652 proofs

Rank 1 is the lowest business-strike mintage in the series. Tiers are assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 struck is a key date, under 2,500,000 a semi-key. The same thresholds apply to every series on this site, so tiers are comparable between them. That is a production measure, not a market judgement, and not a statement about how many survive.

Shopping the series

Individual date pages open a search for that exact date and mint. This one covers the series. Verify every listing, seller, and return policy directly.

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Common questions

How many Lincoln wheat cent dates and mintmarks are there?

140 across 1909 to 1958: 50 from Philadelphia, 46 from Denver and 44 from San Francisco. Cents were struck in every year of the run, but not at every mint: Denver struck none in 1909, 1910, 1921 or 1923, and San Francisco none in 1922, 1932, 1933, 1934, or after 1955. The count includes four entries for 1909, because the VDB and non-VDB cents from each mint were separately reported.

Which Lincoln wheat cent has the lowest mintage?

The 1909-S VDB at 484,000, which is also the most famous key date in American coin collecting. Next are the 1931-S at 866,000, the 1914-D at 1,193,000 and the 1909-S at 1,825,000. Everything else in the series was struck in the millions, and several later dates run past a billion.

Why does this catalog show only one key date?

Mintage explains less about this series than about almost any other. Cents were struck in enormous numbers, past a billion in several later years, so only the 1909-S VDB falls below the key-date threshold that applies across this site. The coins that are genuinely hard to buy well are hard for other reasons: the 1914-D because nobody saved it, the 1922 No D because it is a die state rather than an issue and is easily imitated, the 1943 bronze and 1955 Doubled Die because they are errors that were never part of any reported mintage. Read the notes on those dates rather than the tier column.

What is the 1922 "plain" cent?

A 1922-D whose mintmark disappeared. Denver was the only mint to strike cents in 1922, so a 1922 cent with no mintmark is not a Philadelphia issue; it is a Denver coin from a die on which the D was polished or filled away. Only coins from one recognised die pair count as the collectible No D variety, and telling those from an ordinary weak D, or from a mintmark someone removed deliberately, is difficult enough that the certification record does most of the work.

Are 1943 steel cents rare?

No. All three mints struck them and they are extremely common; they look unusual because copper was reserved for the war and the cent was made of zinc-coated steel for that one year. What is rare is the opposite: a handful of 1943 cents struck in bronze on planchets left over from 1942, and a handful of 1944 cents struck on leftover steel. A magnet settles it in seconds, since steel is magnetic and bronze is not, and that single test exposes most of the plated fakes.

What is the 1955 Doubled Die?

A misaligned hubbing produced 1955 Philadelphia cents on which the date and both mottos are dramatically doubled, visible without magnification. They reached the public through cigarette vending machines in the north-east. Like the 1922 No D and the 1943 bronze, it was never reported separately by the Mint because it was an error rather than an issue, so it is documented here as a variety of the 1955 Philadelphia entry.

Why do published mintages differ for the early Philadelphia dates?

The Mint struck matte proofs at Philadelphia from 1909 to 1916, and some published tables add that year's proofs into the business-strike total while others report them separately. This catalog reports business strikes everywhere and shows proofs in their own field. The affected pages say so, and the 1911 entry additionally notes a 678-coin discrepancy between references that the proof accounting does not explain.

Does Coin Curator publish Lincoln cent values?

No. This catalog carries U.S. Mint production figures, historical context, and documented varieties. It does not publish prices, valuations, price guides, or population and census counts, because Coin Curator does not hold licensed data for any of those. Pages link to the grading services' own certification lookups and to marketplace searches so you can check current evidence yourself.

Mintage sources

Mintage figures are U.S. Mint production records, cross-checked against the published tables below on 2026-08-01. Where those tables disagree, the disagreement is disclosed on the affected page rather than resolved silently.

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