Crafts: Collecting American coins

Image Gallery INDIAN HEAD PENNY Fotolia.com/Bryan Crowe

Collecting American coins is an easy and entertaining hobby if you live in the United States. In most denominations there are some really interesting coins.

Pennies

Probably the most collected American coin is the Lincoln head penny. They have been minted since 1909. Some Lincoln head pennies were made out of zinc instead of copper during WWII. A very few were made of copper in 1943, and these are rare and valuable American coins.

Pennies had an Indian head on them before the Lincoln penny was minted. Another rare American coin is the Indian head penny.

Nickels

From 1883 to 1913, nickels had a picture of the goddess Liberty on them. Interestingly, the 1913 liberty nickel is an extremely rare American coin. Only five copies were made, and a mint employee made them illegally after hours.

The most classic American coin is the buffalo nickel. It has a buffalo on one side and an Indian head on the other.

Since 1938, the nickel has had President Jefferson’s portrait on it. In 2004, the mint started a “Westward Journey” series of nickels to commemorate Lewis and Clark’s journey. They’ve tweaked Jefferson’s portrait and the coins have different historical themes on the reverse side, so the Westward Journey nickels are destined to be collectible coins.

Dimes

Probably the most boring American coins are dimes. The design of dimes hasn’t changed since 1945, the year after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. He suffered from polio and supported the March of Dimes. The March of Dimes helps people with birth defects now, but in Roosevelt’s time it also helped children who had polio. To memorialize his support of the March of Dimes, Franklin’s portrait has remained on dimes since his death. Dimes are boring coins, but that is a great American coin story.