It's been quite a while since I last posted a blog post. Unfortunately, I ran out of new, unique ideas of things to write. Anyways, I finally have a new blog! Last weekend, I went to the World's Fair of Money in Rosemont, Illinois at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. I went on the final day of the show, on Saturday. Unfortunately, last week was the first week of school, so I wasn't able to go to the show during the week. I really wanted to go every day of the show so I could be sure to see everything, talk to dealers, and go to the cool events. Saturday was still fun, even though many of the dealers decided to start their trek home and left either before the show on Saturday or sometime mid-day. It was nice getting in at 9:30, though. Since it was the free day for everyone, I assumed there would be a lot more people there, but even by noon, there still wasn't a super large crowd, which was quite nice.�

To many people, a “penny” is worth just 1 cent. It’s a coin that, with only one, you could buy absolutely nothing with, except maybe a paperclip from someone on the street. Little do some people know, some cents are so valuable that you could use just one to pay for a nice house or pay off your exceedingly expensive student loans from college. This list goes in order of date. They do not go in any particular value order.

Generally, I would not write an entire article about a specific year, but these are interesting coins and I believe they are worthy of an extended look. 2008 was the last year for the popular, but long-lived Lincoln Memorial Cent. In 2010, they were replaced with the Lincoln Shield Cent. 2009, however, was the 100-year anniversary of the Lincoln Cent, which was originally introduced in 1909 with the Lincoln Wheat Cent. The obverse of the coin has remained the same for 110 years, as of the time of this writing. In 2009, the Mint released four different reverse designs recognizing the bicentennial of his birth. Each reverse design was issue during one quarter of 2009, similar to how the Mint releases the National Park/America The Beautiful quarter series. Each coin essentially goes in the order of his life. The first reverse, Birthplace, depicts the Lincoln’s small log cabin in Kentucky. The second shows Lincoln sitting on a log reading a book during his teenage years. The third, Professional Life, shows Lincoln in front of the Illinois state capitol. During this time in his life, he served for eight years in the Illinois state legislature as a lawyer. The final coin shows his career until his assassination, his presidency. Known as the Presidency reverse, this shows the US Capitol, but in an unfinished state, as it was when he was president. This coin has the same composition as the 1982 to present Lincoln cents with 99% zinc, 1% copper, with a weight of 2.5 grams and a 19-millimeter diameter.�

Because of my busy week this past week, you get to read two articles in one day, this along with my article about details grades.

The last few days have been incredibly busy for me. This week, I have finals in school for the end of semester one and then there’s winter break, which means lots of time for coin stuff! Anyways, today, my family and I went to the Weihnachtsmarkt (German Christmas Market) in Chicago and we passed by Harlan J. Berk. Unfortunately, the store wasn’t open, but I did see some awesome stuff in the window that I may go back and look at during the holidays. The window displayed several Mint State Morgans, as well as a very nice complete uncirculated set of Franklin Halves. I’ve always thought sets like that are very cool, but the fun of putting the set together is absent when you choose that route. Personally, that’s what I find to be the most exciting part…the hunt for the perfect coin. Even if you don’t have much to spend, no matter the coin, it can still be a hunt to find the one you want at the price you want. There were also a few commemorative coins that I really liked in the window. There were quite a few window shoppers, likely because it was nearby the market and was a common route to get there. Now for the main part of the blog about Bicentennial Coins: