Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Lord of the Wheats!! 1909S-VDB Found 10/1/11

kleinerschmitter

Sr. Member
Aug 21, 2010
438
1,058
Birmingham, AL
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I am so excited everyone, I hardly ever curse and as soon as I confirmed the find, I've had a mouth like a sailor. I'll give you guys the whole scoop. Three weeks ago, my mother who works as the secretary in my dad's Veterinary office told me she found a wheat penny for me in change from a customer. I went home last weekend for some hog hunting on our central Texas ranch, bagged 2 boars by the way :wink: but she doesn't remember where she put the dang wheat penny for me. This week she finds another one (1941-D) and she ends up putting it in the exact same spot in her junk drawer as the other one, takes both of them out and puts them somewhere she'll remember. I went to Dime Box, Texas this morning to run a little 2 mile race with my mom, and netted $25 from winning the race. Since Dime Box is 5 minutes from my hometown of Lexington, I go back home to unfortunately watch the Aggies get beat by Arkansas >:(

Here's the great part. My mom brings out some gold jewelry she wants me to send into ARA and sell once gold goes back up in price and I notice there's a couple of wheat in there and she told me it's the wheats she's been collecting for me, I take a look at the first one 1941-D, no big deal there and when I move onto the next one, I can tell it has some corrosion and pitting on it, but at first glance I think I can see "1909" on the front, definitely can't see a mintmark underneath it though because of the corrosion. Turn the penny over and can spot Victor David Brenner's initials on the back, excites me a bit bc now I know for sure it's a 1909 but not really much because I don't think there's any way it would be the rare S-VDB. I ask my dad if he's got any magnifying glasses and goes and gets the one he used for splinters, I take the penny outside into the sunshine and really can't see anything on it so I put it back in with the gold jewelry and my dad and I go back outside and finish some spot welding on a pipe fence we're making around the yard. As we finish and are putting tools up in the garage, I spot an old 600x microscope of his sitting on his desk and get the bright idea to go get the penny. Bam, run to the house, get the penny and run back. I set the microscope to 150x magnification and look into the lens, and right under the date is that beautiful 'S' mintmark, and I am going crazy, I mean literally picking my dad up and cursing at the top of my lungs at him. He has no idea about the value of coins, I picked up collecting from my grandpa on my mom's side, so I get him to look into the microscope and ask him what he sees under the date, he says an 'S' and then I turn it over and show him the bottom of the coin and ask what he see now, he says 'VDB'. Then I tell him that his wife just found the rarest wheat penny ever, and she found it in the wild. This is the find of a lifetime, it's not in the greatest shape but it is not for sale and won't be for a very long time!!!

Mk, now onto the pictures. They were all taken through the microscope with a Kodak 8 megapixel camera. You'll notice an outer ring of black on every picture, that is because the lens of the camera is bigger than the lens of the microscope. The pictures are in no particular order, I have 20 of them. Some aren't zoomed in much, some are zoomed in a lot. This just goes to show that these puppy's are still out there and if I my mom can do it, so can you, never give up! The real kicker is that most people write a check to the Veterinary office, she doesn't even go through that much change, I go through thousands more pennies than she does, you just have to be in the right place at the right time. I hope you are all having a fantastic weekend and Happy Hunting to all!

-Kleinerschmitter
 

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kleinerschmitter

kleinerschmitter

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Aug 21, 2010
438
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Birmingham, AL
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The rest of the pics.
 

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kleinerschmitter

kleinerschmitter

Sr. Member
Aug 21, 2010
438
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Birmingham, AL
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I'm sorry the pictures are hard to make out, I'm using my parents camera and the macro on it isn't that great, it wouldn't even focus without the microscope and using it through the microscope lost a lot of the quality. But I can tell you all one thing, both the S and VDB are there and they are dang easy to pick out in the microscope!

;D
 

brendan1414

Hero Member
Apr 9, 2011
753
23
I cant see anything lol, but congrats on that find, VERY AWESOME! too bad its a low grade :/
 

madwest

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Jun 24, 2011
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Congratulations. The find of a lifetime no doubt about it.

Even though it was by proxy (mom) it's still your find from circulation as far as I'm concerned.
 

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kleinerschmitter

kleinerschmitter

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Aug 21, 2010
438
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Birmingham, AL
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Here's a little trick I learned from an old biochemistry professor and it really works, don't look at the pictures straight on, try to angle your head as much as possible from the screen and then look at the pictures, I tried my best to center the S and VDB so they'd be easy to pick out.

ImpurestStewart said:
That sucker is corroded. Congrats on the once in a lifetime find. :notworthy:
Yes, this baby has some good corrosion on it, but I'll take it. No telling what it would be like if it was allowed to circulate for another couple of years.
 

K

Full Member
Jul 17, 2011
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2
MI
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kleinerschmitter said:
Here's a little trick I learned from an old biochemistry professor and it really works, don't look at the pictures straight on, try to angle your head as much as possible from the screen and then look at the pictures, I tried my best to center the S and VDB so they'd be easy to pick out.

for one, that ^^^ worked, at first i was like are you shi++ing me, this cant be real, he really found it!?! THEN I WAS LIKE :wav: :icon_king: :sunny: :angel7: I'm speechless..... :-X

Too bad it is in such bad state though. But what's funny as I was reading some of the posts today about CRH'ing cents, and I was wondering "I wonder how long its going to find that infamous 1909-S VDB" and here it is wow.... I admire you! :notworthy:
 

EpicDeuce

Full Member
Dec 2, 2010
113
0
Wow sir. Hats off to you indeed. I'm somewhat of a penny fanatic myself and was pretty darn excited when I found a regular 1909, I can only imagine how invigorating a VDB find was. And from an avid hunter of all sorts you no doubt appreciated it. You bagged the Moby Dick of pennies, savor that moment.
 

rileyboy

Bronze Member
Jan 15, 2010
1,704
55
Excellent find and a very interesting story behind it. Thanks for the post.
rileyboy
 

timbobwey

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Mar 16, 2009
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I can't tell by the pics. But I'm assuming you really found one since you did post pics. Nice find. It's a little rough, but it's still a great find
 

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kleinerschmitter

kleinerschmitter

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Aug 21, 2010
438
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Birmingham, AL
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Mk everyone, should I send it somewhere to get graded and confirmed, and if so, where? It's not going to get graded well, I know that, and I have zero doubt as to it being a 1909S-VDB, but it would still be nice to get it back in a protective case with a professional opinion attached to it.
 

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kleinerschmitter

kleinerschmitter

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Aug 21, 2010
438
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Birmingham, AL
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TXTim said:
Can't see an S anywhere.
It's in the center of the pictures titled Szoom1-4 in my 2nd post. Like exactly in the center of all those pictures. If you're having trouble seeing it, try to view the screen of the computer from an angle. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of resolution because the lens of the camera didn't fit into the ocular on the microscope, I wish I could show you guys what I saw because in the pictures you can really only see the center of the S but under the microscope, you can clearly see the whole S. At 150x magnification, it's pretty dang hard to miss. The corrosion took a pretty good beating to this penny, but I'll take a crappy S-VDB any day!
 

how u do n

Sr. Member
Dec 21, 2008
369
3
in my own little world :)
Detector(s) used
Fisher 1280x Minlab E-Trac Garrett Pinpointer
You can send it into PSGS to be grades.
It will come back with no grade.........
But, it will come back as authentic.
And,that is what you want.
Way to go "mom" and ^5 to you my friend
HH GL Dan
 

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kleinerschmitter

kleinerschmitter

Sr. Member
Aug 21, 2010
438
1,058
Birmingham, AL
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Minelab Etrac, Excalibur II, Teknetics G2+
Primary Interest:
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how u do n said:
You can send it into PSGS to be grades.
It will come back with no grade.........
But, it will come back as authentic.
And,that is what you want.
Way to go "mom" and ^5 to you my friend
HH GL Dan

It seems as if there isn't a way I can send in a coin to PCGS without prior purchase of at least a $49 membership fee. Without becoming a member they won't let me either print off the submission form or electronically submit online. I'm assuming it will cost around that much to get the coin graded as well and sent back to me? Is there any way I can get this thing authenticated without it costing me $100? By the way, thanks for all of your help, it is greatly appreciated and I have no experience with sending coins in!
 

ronbo22

Sr. Member
Oct 31, 2008
410
20
Florida
The S VDBs are out there. A few years back the ANA would put rare coins into circulation in the town they were having their annual convention at. several times I know the put VF or XF S VDBs out there.
 

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