The Happy Coin Blog

We recently had the opportunity to offer on and purchase one of the most celebrated (and in some ways, controversial) American coins of all time: the 1909-S VDB Lincoln Wheat Cent.This particular coin is graded by NGC as MS65 Red/Brown and is a stunning example of, given the prevalence of wheat cents in any young person's pocket, possibly the most quested-over single design in American numismatics. The bas-relief of President Abraham Lincoln by designer Victor David Brenner has grown to be …

Probably the most common question we are asked by our customers here at The Happy Coin is, “How do I know if these coins are worth anything?” The world of numismatics is sometimes rather impenetrable for the curious, with many just wondering if the handful of coins they discovered in the back of the closet has any real value or is just spending money. As a TL; DR – here is a cheat sheet for checking for the different silver contents of American Coins. It is probably most necess …

A lot of people talk about 1943 pennies and that they may have a silver one, and while they may have the right color penny, most of those are zinc plated steel. The famed error for the 1943 penny is the copper one, as the USA switched metals from copper to steel in order to conserve metal for their war effort. While the mint tested a variety of metals and alloys in the process of settling on steel, they certainly didn’t mean for this one to be released into the wild, and let’s take a look at it! …

At The Happy Coin, we often come across collections either entirely comprised of or including world coins. Recently, a few pounds of world coins walked through the door and Christian took a look and sorted through them in order to catalog them and get a sense of what they were. There is a lot of silver so enjoy!

At The Happy Coin, we often come across collections either entirely comprised of or including world coins. Recently, a few pounds of world coins walked through the door and Christian took a look and sorted through them in order to catalog them and get a sense of what they were. There were a few better ones that we ended up putting to the side as well as some really expensive ones the owner knew about so we walk you through them (some are quite rare). We'd love to look at your collection and pote …