Lincoln Bicentennial Cents 2009

The Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005 set aside the cent's reverse for one year. Its Title III told the Mint to strike 2009 cents with four reverses, one for each stage of Lincoln's life: a Kentucky childhood, Indiana youth, an Illinois law career and a presidency in Washington. A new design was to start each calendar quarter. The Treasury picked the designs after consulting the Commission of Fine Arts and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, with review by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee. Brenner's portrait stayed on the obverse.

The same law asked for something collectors had not seen in decades: cents for collector sets in the exact metal of the 1909 cent. So the 2009 cents come in two metals, copper-plated zinc for circulation and the old 95% copper alloy for the Mint set and proof coins.

The four designs were unveiled at the Lincoln Memorial on September 22, 2008. The first reached circulation on February 12, 2009, Lincoln's 200th birthday, and the last on November 12, 2009, at a ceremony where the Mint also showed the Union shield that replaced them in 2010. The reverse before 2009 is covered on the Lincoln Memorial cent page and the one after on the Lincoln Shield cent page.

Each design has its own pages for Philadelphia, Denver, the satin-finish Mint set coins and the San Francisco proof. The 2009 year page lists them all.

Birth and Early Childhood in Kentucky

A log cabin, standing for Lincoln's humble start. Richard Masters designed it and Jim Licaretz sculpted it. Released February 12, 2009, at a ceremony in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln's birthplace, held at LaRue County High School. See the Philadelphia and Denver coins.

Formative Years in Indiana

Young Lincoln sits on a log reading a book, taking a break from splitting rails. Charles Vickers both designed and sculpted it. Released May 14, 2009. See the Philadelphia and Denver coins.

Professional Life in Illinois

Lincoln as a young lawyer, standing in front of the Old State Capitol in Springfield. Joel Iskowitz designed it and Don Everhart sculpted it. Released August 13, 2009. See the Philadelphia and Denver coins.

Presidency in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Capitol with its dome only half finished, as it stood while Lincoln was president. Susan Gamble designed it and Joseph Menna sculpted it. Released November 12, 2009. See the Philadelphia and Denver coins.

Which design. Read the reverse: cabin, boy reading, lawyer, or Capitol dome. The designer's and sculptor's initials appear on the reverse too, such as RM and JL on the cabin.

Mint mark. It is under the date, as on other Lincoln cents. Philadelphia coins have none, Denver coins have a D and San Francisco proofs have an S.

Circulation, satin or proof. Every design was made in three forms.

• Business strikes from Philadelphia and Denver, in copper-plated zinc, released into circulation one design at a time.
• Satin finish coins from the 2009 Uncirculated Coin Set, which held 36 coins, 18 from each mint, all with a satin surface. The set reached buyers in October 2009, later than planned because of tarnish problems. Its cents are the 95% copper alloy. NGC gives 784,614 of each satin cent. See the satin pages for Early Childhood, Formative Years, Professional Life and Presidency.
• Proofs from San Francisco, also in the copper alloy, with mirror fields and frosted designs. They came in the 2009 Proof Set, the Silver Proof Set and a separate four-coin Lincoln Bicentennial One-Cent Proof Set. NGC gives 2,995,615 of each design. See the proofs of Early Childhood, Formative Years, Professional Life and Presidency.

Weight is the surest test of metal: a copper alloy cent weighs 3.11 grams and a plated zinc cent 2.5 grams.

Log cabin doubled dies. The Early Childhood reverse produced a long run of doubled dies that show as extra or thickened log ends on the cabin wall. Wexler numbers the log ends from the bottom of the column to the left of the small window, starting with #1 on the right, so its listings can say exactly which ends are doubled. VarietyVista's EC DDR-001, for example, adds a strong extra log end at log 10. Some of Wexler's listings are on satin-finish Mint set coins, which it marks "SF EC".

Formative Years extra fingers. On many Formative Years dies the doubling shows on the left hand that holds the book, as an extra finger or part of one; collectors call these "skeleton finger" cents (search). VarietyVista's DDR-043 adds an extra index finger, an extra middle finger and part of a second book spine, and is FS-801 in the Cherrypickers' Guide; DDR-001 is FS-802. San Francisco proofs of this design have extra-finger doubled dies too. Formative Years obverse doubled dies are listed too: VarietyVista's FY DDO-001 has notches on LIBERTY and extra thickness on the lower hair and beard, and Wexler has a separate page of them.

Professional Life columns. Doubling on this reverse tends to show among the columns and windows of the Old State Capitol, such as an extra window sill beside the fourth column on VarietyVista's PL DDR-005.

Die clashes, cuds and trail dies. Mad Die Clashes lists clashed dies on all four designs, and Cuds on Coins and Trail Dies list 2009 cuds and trail dies, where a broken or shifting die left extra marks.

No 2009 cent contains silver, not even the ones sold in the Silver Proof Set. CoinNews gave the collector alloy as 95% copper, 3% zinc and 2% tin, which is the same 1909 mix that Numismatic News and NGC describe as 95% copper with tin and zinc.