1909-S VDB Lincoln Wheat Cent
Key dateThe key date of the series and one of the best-known key dates in American coin collecting. San Francisco struck only 484,000 before the initials were removed, and the coin was recognised as scarce almost immediately, which is why so many survive in higher grades than their mintage would normally allow.
Mintage
- Business strikes
- 484,000
- Mint
- San Francisco (S)
- Mintage rank
- 1 of 140
Rank 1 is the lowest business-strike mintage in the series. Mintage is what the Mint produced, not what survives. Cents circulated harder and longer than any other denomination, were spent rather than saved, and were melted and lost in numbers nobody recorded. On this series in particular, mintage is a poor guide to how hard a coin is to buy.
Reading the figure
It is the smallest of the 44 San Francisco issues in the series. Of the 103,004,000 struck across all mints in 1909, this issue accounts for under 1%. Philadelphia struck more than a hundred times as many that year. The 1909 split ran Philadelphia 72,700,000, Philadelphia 27,995,000, San Francisco 1,825,000 and San Francisco 484,000. The series median is 81,735,000, so fewer than half as many of these were struck as a typical date. In 1909 the coin was struck at Philadelphia and San Francisco; Denver struck none.
Every sentence above is computed from the mintage table on this page, not asserted separately.
Scarcity tier
Key date
Assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 is a key date, under 2,500,000 is a semi-key.
This is a reproducible label derived from the mintage column, not a market valuation and not a Coin Curator price opinion. The same thresholds apply to every series on this site. Several dates are far harder or far easier to obtain than their mintage implies; where that is true, it is stated above.
Mintage explains less here than in any other series. Mintage explains less about this series than about almost any other. Read the full note on the series page.
What to check before buying
Specific to the 1909-S VDB:
- 1This is among the most counterfeited U.S. coins. The usual fakes add an S mintmark to a Philadelphia VDB cent, or add VDB to a plain 1909-S. Examine both the mintmark and the reverse initials for tooling.
- 2Certification by a major service is the practical baseline at this date, and the certification number should be verified on the service's own lookup rather than from a photograph of the label.
And for any certified coin
Verify the certification number on the grading service’s own lookup rather than from a photograph of the label, match the listing images to the certification record including grade and any variety attribution, look for cleaning, compare the mintmark against published photographs of the genuine issue, and read the return policy before buying. The grading guide covers each of these in full.
Coin Curator does not grade, authenticate, or appraise coins, and publishes no price or population data. These are verification steps, not a valuation.
Verify a certification number
Look a 1909-S VDBcertification number up on the service’s own site. A photograph of a label proves nothing.
Each service publishes its own guarantee with conditions and exclusions. Compare PCGS, NGC and ANACS.
Find a 1909-S VDB for sale
Opens an eBay search for this exact date and mint. Coin Curator does not list inventory, hold stock, or quote prices; verify each listing, seller, and return policy directly.
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Common questions
How many 1909-S VDB Lincoln wheat cents were minted?
The San Francisco Mint struck 484,000 1909-S VDB Lincoln wheat cents for circulation. That is the 1st lowest business-strike mintage of the 140 date and mintmark combinations in the series.
Is the 1909-S VDB Lincoln wheat cent a key date?
Coin Curator labels it a key date, assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 struck is a key date and under 2,500,000 is a semi-key. The same thresholds are used for every series on this site, so the tiers are comparable between them. That label describes production, not market value or how hard the coin is to find today. The key date of the series and one of the best-known key dates in American coin collecting. San Francisco struck only 484,000 before the initials were removed, and the coin was recognised as scarce almost immediately, which is why so many survive in higher grades than their mintage would normally allow.
What should I check before buying a 1909-S VDB Lincoln wheat cent?
Verify the certification number on the grading service's own lookup page, match the listing photographs to the certification record, check for cleaning, and compare the mintmark shape and position against published photographs of the genuine issue. This is among the most counterfeited U.S. coins. The usual fakes add an S mintmark to a Philadelphia VDB cent, or add VDB to a plain 1909-S. Examine both the mintmark and the reverse initials for tooling.
Related dates
Guides for this coin
All guides →Lincoln Cent Key Dates & Varieties
The longest-running US design and the series that hooks most collectors. The 1909-S VDB, 1914-D, 1922 No-D, and the 1955 Doubled Die, the dates and varieties where the value lives.
1 min readVintage Guide1909-S VDB Lincoln Penny: The Most Famous Penny
A low-mintage first-year Lincoln cent associated with the controversy over designer Victor David Brenner’s initials. Learn what to verify before buying.
1 min readEducationWhat Makes a Coin a “Key Date”, and Why It Drives Value
Coins from the same series can differ sharply in availability and demand. Learn how date, mintmark, variety, grade, and surfaces shape key-date research.
1 min readBuying GuideApproachable Key-Date Coins to Research First
Seven dates that teach scarcity, identification, grade tradeoffs, and counterfeit-aware buying, without promising a fixed price or resale result.
1 min readMintage 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.
- LandOfCoins, Lincoln wheat cent mintage — Business strikes and proofs in separate columns. Used as the business-strike figures here.
- Wikipedia, Lincoln cent mintage figures — A separate article from the main Lincoln cent page, which carries no table. Its Philadelphia figures for 1909-1915 add that year's matte proofs into the business-strike total.
- USA Coin Book, Lincoln wheat cent — Consulted to break disagreements. Rounds the 1953 and 1954 figures to the nearest million, so it is a tiebreaker rather than a primary source.
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