1909 VBD Wheat Penny Design

At the special request of none other than President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, one of the finest sculptors of the US, Victor David Brenner, designed both the front and rear side of 1909 wheat penny. The front side of the penny was engraved with the commendable face portrait of Abraham Lincoln and the rear side was designed with two stylized stalks of wheat.

When the penny began its debut on a commercial basis at the offset of early evening of August 2, 1909. The people offered a five cent nickel for three new Lincoln Pennies.

"Initial" Controversy

It took a while for the people to notice that the initials "VDB" in the form of monogram appeared on the back side of the coin beneath the two wheat stalks. The initials were the designers, Victor David Brenner.

Some protesting was delivered both from public and from the in-house designers of the coins who were not taken confidant about the new coins. An additional reason for the anger of the in-house designers was that Brenner was an immigrant of uncertain background. This ultimately led to the removal of the "VDB" mark from the wheat penny. This added to the fancied demand of the 1909 VDB Wheat Penny.

1909 S VDB Penny

Out of the three prominent mints namely, the Philadelphia mint, the San Francisco Mint and the Denver mint, the first two, minted these coins. In which no mintmark was struck at the first mint. The second mint namely San Francisco mint punched “S” mint mark. This became famous as “the 1909 S VDB penny.”

Only about 484,000 coins were produced before the public outcry of the designer’s initials. Because of the natural fact that very few coins bearing the mark S VDB were minted, the coin became the centre of attraction of all and became one of the rarest things under the sun.

1909 S VDB penny became the darling amongst the collectors and forced them to pay consistently more than any other Lincoln penny (with an exception of 1943 Copper cent, of course).