Tag Archives: coin

12/365: A Penny Saved

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This afternoon, Kevin found a wheat penny in his little change thingy. It was from 1918, two years before his Grandpa was born. World War I was ending, and Daylight Savings Time was instituted.

It prompted me to go check the coin collections I’ve been working on for years and years but haven’t touched in quite some time. And it prompted Kevin to find the jar of wheat pennies his dad gave him a long time ago that we’ve always meant to sort through.

I have two Lincoln Cent collections: 1941 to 1974 and 1975 to 2000, both in Whitman-brand folders. I think I got the first one for Christmas way back when, and I must have gotten the latter in 2000 because the same era folders now are for 1974 to 2002.

The coins I still need to complete my first collection, the ’41 to ’75 one:

  • 1941-S
  • 1945-D
  • 1945-S
  • 1946-S
  • 1947-S
  • 1948-S
  • 1949-S
  • 1952-S
  • 1953-S
  • 1954
  • 1955-S
  • 1959
  • 1968-S
  • 1969-S
  • 1970-S
  • 1971-S
  • 1972-S
  • 1973-S
  • 1974-S

The “S” stands for San Francisco; the “D” stands for Detroit. These signify the particular mint that produced the coin. Years with no additional letter, in this era at least, were minted in Philadelphia. It makes sense that I would have more trouble finding San Franciso coins than Denver or Philadelphia coins since I’m in Virginia.

In addition to that 1918 wheat penny, we have some other pennies that don’t fit in my folders, some I’ve had and others I found sorting through the jar’s contents. I need the 1909-1940 folder for these, but it appears to be sold out at the company’s site.

  • 1919
  • 1929
  • 1930
  • 1935
  • 1935-D
  • 1936 (x2)
  • 1936-D
  • 1939
  • 1940 (x4)

There’s been a lot of talk about discontinuing the printing of pennies in recent years. According to a 2006 USA Today editorial by Wake Forest Economics professor Robert Whaples, it costs almost 1-1/2 cents to produce one penny.

Whether that’s the case or not, I’m holding onto my penny collection.

I took one more shot, of my signature on the earlier of the two Whitman folders because it shows (to me and people who know me well IRL) how long ago I must have gotten it.

It was definitely before 8th grade, I know regardless of the handwriting, because that was the year I decided my name would be “Jo.” I filled out all of my paperwork with an “A” for my middle initial, and I introduced myself that way to everyone new at junior high.

Christ Pantocrator

Jesus coin: ‘Ἰησοῦς Χριστός’

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It was the coolest unexpected Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten. It was given to me a couple of years ago by my father-in-law, who is an avid historian. A Roman coin made of bronze, it was made 1,000 years before me around the year 973, during the reign of John I.

The tradition was to have the Roman emperors on the obverse, or front, of the coin. However, it was commonly believed that the world would end in the year 1,000, so people were turning toward Jesus who usually hadn’t before. It seems almost a sort of penance to put Jesus’ image on the coins.

Jesus is pictured on the front of the coin with a halo, holding a book of gospels. You can see what the image would have looked like from the mosaic above of the Christ Pantocrator (usually translated “Almighty”) that’s in the Hagia Sophia.

Even though it’s a Roman coin, the words on the back of the coin are Greek. They say, “XINSUS XRISTUS BASILEU BASILE.” It means, “Jesus Christ, King of Kings.”