You could have a penny worth $7K in your pocket — and not even know it (2024)

Find a penny, pick it up, 40 years later, you may have good luck.

A coin connoisseur has made a convincing case for never giving away your change by revealing a 1983 Lincoln penny could be worth $7,000.

Blake Alma, the penny pundit behind the CoinHub TikTokaccount, is urging people to look through their loose change for a 1983 penny with no mint mark.

Mint marks are the letters on the face of the coin that indicate where the coin was made, like “P” for “Philadelphia.”

But that’s not the only thing to peep.

“Next, you’ll want to check the bottom of the coin’s other side to see if the ‘One cent’ wording has a ‘doubling effect,'” Alma explained.

The doubling of the letters occurs when the stamping machine accidentally imprints the coin twice in slightly different spots, creating a 3-D effect.

According to CNBC’s Make It, the US made 7.7 billion pennies in 1983, but only about 5,000 are known to have this doubling error — making them valuable to those who find one in their possession.

James McCartney, director of numismatics atStack’s Bowers auction house, told Make It that if you discover one of these rare coins, you should take it to a certified coin dealer to have it assessed and graded.

“In general, the internet has a lot of misinformation about coin prices,” he told the outlet.

Coins are graded on a scale between 1 and 70, with 70 being near-perfect condition.

McCartney warns budding change-makers not to try to shine or clean their coins if they want to sell them to a collector.

“Collectors want their coins ‘original,’ which means they don’t have any surface impairments and show no signs of cleaning or damage,” he explained.

In October, a TikToker went viral by recommending viewers check their change jars for a 1992 commemorative Lincoln coin that could be worth a whopping $26,000. There are two varieties of the penny, with very subtle differences between them.

“Flip the coin over,” the TikToker says in the money clip, instructing penny-pinchers to look at the word “America” written on the tails side of the penny. “If you have a coin where the A and the M are nearly touching, then you have the rare variety.”