Wheat cent

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A 1937 Wheat cent.

The Lincoln Wheat Ears Cent (sometimes referred to as a Wheat penny, a Wheat Head, or a Wheatie) was a United States one-cent coin produced from 1909 to 1958.

Both the obverse and the reverse were designed by Victor David Brenner, a New York sculptor. Brenner's initials, V.D.B., were included on the reverse of the coin below the two stylized wheat stalks on a limited number of the coins until public controversy forced their removal. Brenner's initials were restored to the obverse, below Lincoln's shoulder, in 1918.

One of the more valuable coins to collectors is the 1909 San Francisco, California-minted "VDB" penny, so-named because the designer's initials were included between the stalks of wheat on the lower reverse side; only 484,000 were produced before the public outcry at the designer's initials being so prominently displayed. Even poor-quality examples of the 1909-S VDB coin bring hundreds of dollars and a high-grade mint condition example can sell for $6,000 to $12,000 or more. By contrast, the Philadelphia mint produced nearly 28 million examples of the 1909 VDB cent and such coins are far less valuable. The other key date of the series is the 1914-D, with a mintage of just under 1.2 million. Uncirculated examples have auctioned for over $26,000.^[1]

The only other wheat cents to command prices on par with the 1909-S VDB and 1914-D are both error coins: the 1922 "plain" ($5500 for uncirculated specimens^[2]), the result of a filled die, and the 1955 doubled die ($1000+ for uncirculated specimens^[3]).

In 1959, to commemorate the sesquicentennial of Lincoln's birth, the wheat ears on the reverse of the coin were replaced with a rendering of the Lincoln Memorial by Frank Gasparro.