EVERYONE IN OUR HOBBY LIKES RARE COINS. We also always like to find some undervalued rarity, a sleeper, as it were. Yet the two seldom both fit the description of a single coin. The 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent, for example. It’s both a rarity and a key to the long, Lincoln cent series. With 484,000 of them as the official total, and with their track record as a key coin, they will never be particularly cheap, though. Or the 1916-D Mercury dime, to single out another favorite. Sporting a Mint tally of 264,000 of this special ten-cent piece, this key dime will always be available, but will never be all that affordable. But what about a series in which the entire run of every coin minted for over thirty-year totals only 537,913? Wouldn’t these be insanely expensive? We might think so, and yet we may be pleasantly surprised.
