Why It Seems Valuable: The 1922 Lincoln cent without a mintmark is famously rare — it was only struck in Denver, and some planchets were misstruck with no visible “D” mintmark.
Why It’s Actually Worthless (Sometimes): Many 1922 “plain” cents are simply worn-out coins or fakes with the mintmark removed. Unless authenticated by a grading service (like PCGS or NGC), most of these are deemed altered and have little to no collector value. Value Range: $0.01 – $3 if unauthenticated or altered.
Why They Seem Valuable: The 50 State Quarters Program created a frenzy among casual collectors. Some quarters have odd features — like doubled letters or small die chips — leading people to believe they have a rare “error” coin.
Why They’re Actually Worthless: Most of these are just die deterioration or common machine doubling — not true mint errors. These kinds of imperfections are so common, they’re worth face value only. Value Range: $0.25 in most cases.
Why It Seems Valuable: General Mills gave away 5,500 Sacagawea dollars in Cheerios boxes as a promotion in 2000. A small number had a special pattern on the eagle’s tail feathers, which collectors crave.
Why Most Are Worthless: Unless your coin has the enhanced tail feather variety, it’s just a regular Sacagawea dollar — millions were minted. People confuse the ordinary promo coins with the rare pattern, leading to disappointment.
Why It Seems Valuable: The “Small Date” version of the 1970-S penny is scarcer than the large date version, and some reports claim it can fetch high prices.
Why It’s Often Worthless: There’s confusion between proof and business strike versions. Most people have the regular proof coin, which is not rare. Only specific die varieties carry real value — and even then, they need grading and authentication.