Penny for your thoughts on Pennies

Need some information from any member who knows coins and coin collecting.

Found an old piggy bank in the attic from previous generation, filled with a couple hundred pennies. Wheat pennies. Local coin shop told me 2-1 for Wheat Pennies. I sorted through them and I have few questions just to be informed and as a second opinion. Would appreciate some input from members who know about the value of old coins.

#1 Is 2-1 a reasonable value?
#2 Does it matter from what era they are from. Most were minted in the ’50’s, and ‘40’s have some from the ’20’s and ‘30’s.
#3 Some have a “D” or “S” stamped under the date, obliviously where they were minted. Does that change the value?
#4 Found a few dozen “Aluminum” pennies minted during the war. What about their value?

Looking forward to members input. JW

 

Check the ones from the 20's and 30's against price charts(available online), pull the good ones out along with the steel ones and sell the rest, if they are very worn none of them a really worth much.

You could probably do better than 2/1 , but a couple hundred(2 or $3) is not very much.

 

Wheat pennies in circulated condition are worth 6 cents and up the war agen silver pennies are worth 15 cents and up .

 

I'm not really a coin collector, but I started one of those coin books for old pennies years ago. Over the decades I've found the 1909-S and the 1909-VDB, but not the 1909-S-VDB. I do have all of the "steelies" in good shape.

I would think that the individual coins, particularly the less common ones, would be more valuable to a collector than just a simple 2:1.

 

Unless you have some pennies in excellent shape from scarce mints, they really aren't going to be worth that much. Remember, they made millions of them. The "S" mint mark (San Francisco) will probably be worth the most, because it had smaller runs. Pick out the best ones and search on-line for prices. The rest are probably worth about $.02/each, unfortunately.

Good luck!

 

Thank you to everyone who has replied so far. Just in the hour that I reached out for info, I have doubled my knowledge of old coins, which was very little, I thought they were "aluminum".

I have located a site that has a price chart of expected value of coins along with rare years and minting. Unfortunately, as noted, the value is directly related to the condition, but still some years of wheat pennies can be worth up to a nickel.

Thanks again, even a small amount of information will prevent me from feeling like a complete "sap" at the coin store... now for a closer look at these old pennies!

 

I've been told that my 1909-S is worth roughly $100.00 and my 1909-VDB is worth roughly $10.00. These quotes were a number of years ago, however.