All you people that have these, you could be sitting on some coin (no pun intended) 1909S VDB, 1943 copper can bring serious money. So do not be too quick to toss them away.
In the 1960's I would get rolls of pennies to fill my collection. I have one of everything (I think) EXCEPT the 1909S VDB.
Victor D. Brenner? I looked at a LOT of coins and never could find him. Somewhere I have a jar of wartime pennies, they were not copper.
Cheap hobby!
Yes Victor David Brenner was the designer of the Lincoln Wheat Cent and as was not unusual his initials were on the first strikes from both the Philadelphia and San Francisco Mints. While millions were struck in Philly, less than 500,000 were struck in San Francisco. After a short time the mint redid the dies and removed the initials because of some protests. Kind of odd because James B Longacres initials appear on almost all gold coins produced from about 1849 to 1907/08. So common that it isn't mentioned in many descriptions.
Ah, But the V.D.B. initials were put back on the coin in 1918 and are there today.
Absolutely - but they are much less conspicuous, if you don't know where to look you'll never even see them. It has been a lot of years since I could see them without magnification.
Based on what I've read about it, I think the objections in 1909 were probably as much because of how prominent they were as to the fact they were there. Brenner's early designs for the coin had his full name on the obverse.