JEFF BURKE'S NEW 1909 V.D.B. LINCOLN CENT

As a young boy in the early 1970s, I kept my coin collection in an antique green trunk at our home in Hastings, Nebraska. This treasure chest was always at the foot of my bed in a basement bedroom that I shared with my brother Tom. On special occasions like Christmas, I would haul the trunk upstairs to the study room (shown in the photo) to examine my coins within eyeshot of the brightly decorated Christmas tree in our living room. To learn more about coins, I read the old newspaper-style Coin World on a regular basis. One of my trunk treasures was a 1909-S V.D.B. Lincoln cent in EF. I purchased this coin for $175.00 from a company in California after seeing an ad in Coin World. I earned every penny of the $175.00 sweating over a push lawn mower in neighborhood yards.

On a personal note, the 1909 V.D.B. Lincoln cent reminded me of our family trip to the East Coast during the summer of 1969 or 1970. Our itinerary included inside tours of the Philadelphia Mint as well as the White House. Despite having to wait in line for several hours at the latter's East Wing entrance, we finally had a magnificent guided walk through the presidential home! It was also quite a thrill to tour our nation's first mint. I recall that we stayed with my mother's Uncle Ed and Aunt Peg Waltemath and my cousins, who lived in the Philadelphia area. They took us to see the giant King of Prussia Mall near Philadelphia. Of course I found a few coins to purchase at a coin store in this behemoth!

At some point during my junior high school years, I decided to trade or sell my coin collection, including my coveted 1909-S V.D.B. and a 1937-D three-legged variety American Bison nickel, also in EF. My new collecting goal: a basic U.S. type set of coins. Eventually, this type set grew to forty pieces. They ranged from an 1828 13-Stars half cent in AU to a 1976 Proof Bicentennial Eisenhower dollar and varied in grade from VF to UNC with a few proof specimens, as well. I spent three years assembling the set, carefully placing each piece in a Whitman blue U.S. type coin folder.

Life moved on. Alas, I had to sell my precious U.S. type set to help pay for college. I spent several years overseas teaching in Cairo, eventually completed a Ph.D. at McGill University in Montreal, had two wonderful children (one born in Montreal and the other in Salem, Virginia) and finally landed in Virginia where I worked as a college professor. My second wife, Beth, and I lived with Beth's mother Carol, in rural Bedford County with a scenic view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from our front porch. The three of us had many travel adventures together! Sadly, Carol passed away from cancer while in hospice care in our home in 2009.

A few years before she passed, Carol gifted me with some family inheritance money. After deliberating what to do with this generous gift, I decided to take up the hobby of coin collecting once again. I still remember the butterflies in my stomach and sheer excitement when I saw the UPS driver meander down our driveway on a Saturday morning. He was delivering the 1909-S V.D.B. that I had purchased from Heritage Auctions. I was so excited to own another 1909-S V.D.B. PCGS MS 63 RB, some thirty-five years after my first one! It had original luster with beautiful toning. Eventually, I developed a passion for early American coppers, and traded this piece to embark on my new collecting journey. That old green trunk was opening once again, thanks to Carol!

A former collecting focus of mine was assembling a small collection of key or semi-key date coins in my favorite series: Lincoln cents, Buffalo nickels, Mercury dimes, Walking Liberty half dollars, Morgan dollars, and Saint-Gaudens double eagles. Indian Head cents are included in the mix as well – I still own my prized 1877 Indian Head Cent PCGS EF 45, purchased from Steve Estes Rare Coins in 2006. Now I find joy in searching for high-grade, well-struck and inexpensive type coins in these series to add to my collection.

To prepare for my latest Lincoln cent acquisition, I reread sections of The Complete Guide to Lincoln Cents, David W. Lange, 2005; A Guide Book of Lincoln Cents, Q. David Bowers, 2008; The Secret History of the First U.S. Mint, Joel J. Orosz and Leonard D. Augsburger, 2011; The Investor's Guide to United States Coins, Neil S. Berman and Silvano DiGenova, 2007; and the History of the United States Mint and Its Coinage, also by David Lange, 2005.

Initially, I considered targeting the 1916-P for my hunt. The Lincoln cent featured "new obverse master hubs" at the Philadelphia Mint that year, producing stellar specimens (see Lange, Lincoln Cents, p. 38). However, I returned to a sentimental favorite – the 1909 V.D.B. This was the first year of mintage for Lincoln cents and I am fond of the V.D.B. letters on the bottom of the reverse. For me, finding V.D.B. on a Lincoln cent reverse is like Charlie discovering the golden ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory!

I prefer toned Lincoln cents with original surfaces. I studied at least eighty to ninety specimens online before making my choice. So many examples had mushy or even ghost V.D.B. letters. Super shiny dipped specimens did not beckon to me. I finally selected a 1909 V.D.B. PCGS MS 65 RB that I found on The Reeded Edge eBay store.

This historic coin arrived in the mail yesterday. What a golden beauty! I love the overall color and toning as well as the distinctive V.D.B. letters on the reverse!

Beth bought this coin for me as a gift for my 62nd birthday. Some five decades into collecting, I am no longer kneeling for hours on the floor to study the contents of that long-gone trunk. But I continue to delight in my ever-changing collection of numismatic treasures.

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