Latest news with #KevinMcColly
Finextra
30-07-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Coinstar names brandon Thompson as chief commercial officer
Coinstar, LLC, a global financial services leader, has appointed Brandon Thompson as its new chief commercial officer (CCO). 0 In this role, Thompson will lead Coinstar's commercial strategy with a focus on accelerating growth in the U.S. and globally by advancing the company's digital transformation. A key part of his focus will be expanding the reach of CINQ by Coinstar™, the company's digital wallet. Thompson will also lead the launch of new financial products designed to help customers turn physical cash and coins into digital currency. These tools will give users the ability to pay bills, shop online or in-store, and manage everyday expenses with ease. With nearly 24,000 connected kiosks worldwide, Coinstar is uniquely positioned to serve cash-based customers at scale. Its real-time processing capabilities and trusted in-store footprint allow the company to bridge the gap between physical and digital currency more effectively than any other provider. "We process more than 50 million transactions a year and partner with over 700 retailers worldwide. That kind of scale and the trust behind it gives us a unique opportunity to deliver even more value to customers," said Kevin McColly, CEO at Coinstar. "Brandon brings exactly the kind of leadership we need as we expand from a trusted physical network into a full digital financial platform. He knows how to build on that foundation and lead us through the next phase of growth." With more than 20 years of experience across digital banking, fintech, and financial services, Thompson has a proven track record of driving growth, launching new products, and building inclusive financial strategies. His work in mobile banking, general purpose reloadable (GPR) cards, and banking-as-a-service has focused on increasing access for cash-preferred consumers, making him well-suited to help lead Coinstar's evolution from coin-counting to full-service financial solutions. "Coinstar has the infrastructure and trust to do something very few companies can, bridge the gap between physical currency and the digital economy at scale," said Brandon Thompson, CCO at Coinstar. "This is about more than just converting coins and cash. It's about giving people real access to tools they can use to spend, save, and manage money however and wherever they want. We're starting with the U.S., but the opportunity is global." Coinstar's digital wallet, CINQ by Coinstar™, launched in 2024 and gives consumers a simple way to digitize physical currency in minutes. The company's next wave of product innovation in late 2025 will expand its ability to support customers' financial needs beyond the kiosk. Before joining Coinstar, Thompson served as executive vice president at Green Dot Corporation, where he led product, marketing, and commercial strategy across prepaid and mobile financial services. He also held senior executive roles at Netspend and EML, helping to scale product portfolios that gave millions of cash-reliant consumers access to digital tools.
Yahoo
29-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Coinstar to offer Mastercard card
This story was originally published on Payments Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Payments Dive newsletter. Dive Brief: Consumers who use Coinstar machines at grocery stores and other venues to convert their pocket change into another form of payment will soon be able to put the money on prepaid debit cards. That service will be available to the general public later this year, CEO Kevin McColly said in an interview last week. Coinstar is partnering with the network Mastercard to offer the cards, which will be issued as a virtual card, or customers can choose to have a physical card sent to them, McColly said. The company is testing the service in the market now with a limited group, he said. Pricing for the cards isn't set yet, the CEO said, explaining they may be offered for free, or there could be a fee. There is value to the company in offering it for free, and then allowing consumers to reuse it and gaining 'customer stickiness,' he said. Dive Insight: Coinstar operates 25,000 coin exchange kiosks at stores and other locations in eight countries in the U.S. and Europe, with some 50 million transactions annually. About 18,500 of those machines are in the United States. The new Mastercard debit card will add another option for consumers in terms of how they can convert their coins into other payment forms. 'We actually just soft launched it for friends and family a couple weeks ago, and our planned national rollout is sometime in very early Q4,' McColly said in an interview last Tuesday. The CEO explained how the soon-to-be-offered card will work: 'You can literally just go to the Coinstar machine, have a digital wallet on your phone, load it right there at the kiosk, and it's instantly available for you to go spend as a Mastercard debit card,' he said. The company generally charges a 12% fee if customers convert their coins to cash, via a receipt they take to cashiers at stores, but it also offers other ways to convert the coins without a fee. For instance, a customer can currently transfer the value to a Starbucks, Home Depot or other store gift card at the kiosk without paying a fee. For customers that may choose to load the value directly to their bank account, the financial institution may make the service available free-of-charge, or require a fee. A customer can also convert the money to bitcoin and load it onto a digital wallet. While McColly would not provide financial details, he said the company is profitable. The Bellevue, Washington-based company is owned by the private equity firm Apollo Global Management. Coinstar hasn't generally engaged in a lot of marketing in the past, and has instead relied mainly on its green machines at grocery stores to build brand awareness, McColly said. But for the launch of a new service, such as the Mastercard debit card, marketing will be a 'critical component,' he said. Mastercard didn't immediately have a comment on the new debit card relationship with Coinstar. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump tells Treasury Department to stop making pennies. What's that mean for your pennies?
Learn to love your coins. That's the message from Kevin McColly, CEO of Coinstar, the company behind those coin-cashing machines you see in supermarkets. American consumers made only 16% of their payments in cash in 2023, according to the Federal Reserve. A 2022 Pew survey found that two-fifths of consumers never use cash at all. President Donald Trump has ordered the Treasury to stop minting pennies because their production cost exceeds their value. (Intriguingly, the same is true of nickels.) Many Americans regard both nickels and pennies as more nuisance than currency. The typical household is sitting on $60 to $90 in neglected coins, enough to fill one or two pint-size beer mugs, according to the Federal Reserve. Americans throw away millions of dollars in coins every year, literally treating them like trash. Why do we treat coins like trash? McColly thinks we should change the way we think about coins. To state the obvious, coins are worth money. Coinstar converts $3 billion in coins into spendable cash every year, one coin jar at a time. The average jar yields $58 in buying power. Most of us don't realize how much our coins are worth. Thus, a trip to a coin-exchange kiosk (or a bank, or credit union) can yield a pleasant surprise. 'People underestimate the value of their jar by about half,' McColly said. 'It's a wonderfully pleasurable experience. People have this sensation of found money.' Certain groups of Americans – lower-income households, and those over 55 – still use plenty of cash, the Fed found, along with people who prefer to shop in person. Coins aren't clutter, they're currency As for the rest of us, McColly thinks it is time for a paradigm shift. Don't think of your coins as clutter. Think of them as recyclables. 'They're metal,' he said, in case we needed a reminder. 'And they have a long and useful life.' The Treasury still mints more than 5 billion coins a year, although the figure is dropping, according to the journal CoinNews. 'Those are just natural resources coming out of the Earth,' McColly said: Copper-plated zinc for pennies, copper-nickel alloys for nickels, dimes and quarters. His point: If Americans got serious about gathering up their idle coins and 'recycling' them into the monetary system, the Mint wouldn't have to make so many new ones. Granted, McColly has a vested interest. His company collects a small cut of the coins that consumers deposit. 'You can go to your own bank or credit union and not pay any fee,' said Kimberly Palmer, personal finance expert at NerdWallet. Both NerdWallet and Bankrate offer tip sheets on exchanging coins for cash. Most banks will take an account holder's coins for free, Bankrate reports, but not all, and you may need to roll the coins yourself. 'I think that a lot of people probably do have hidden coins stashed around their home, and it can be worth their time to go and collect them,' Palmer said. McColly notes that Coinstar generally waives its fee if the depositor chooses to trade in coins for a retail gift card, rather than cash. He is not alone in forecasting a future for the penny, the nickel, and their more profitable kin. 'We've been much slower than parts of Europe and Asia to adopt mobile payments and contactless credit cards,' said Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate. The pandemic delivered a timely reminder of how much we still rely on cash: Consumers and business owners sat on their coins amid a global shutdown, seeding an actual coin shortage. 'It kind of froze the whole system,' Rossman said. While Trump has only instructed the Mint to stop making pennies, some voices have urged America to stop using them. The Common Cents Act, introduced on April 30 by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, would round cash transactions to the nearest five cents. 'The penny is outdated and inefficient and no longer serves the needs of our economy,' said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Democrat. But the bill could push the nation down a slippery slope. 'So, You Want to Get Rid of the Penny,' the New York Times mused in a recent headline. 'Do You Have a Plan for the Nickel?' As it turns out, nixing the penny creates new problems. If America rids itself of pennies, the Times reported, the nation will soon find itself flooded with nickels. The government loses nearly three cents on every penny it mints. On a nickel, it loses nearly nine cents. More nickels would mean steeper losses. America could kill both the penny and the nickel, the two money-losers on its roster of coins. But without pennies or nickels, how would a consumer pay a 15-cent tab? You could round every price to the nearest 10 cents, taking the Common Cents Act a step further. But then, what becomes of the quarter? And so on. Do you own an old penny worth as much as a million dollars? Experts say it's highly unlikely. You may have seen one of many headlines blasted online lately about valuable pennies in circulation, "Lincoln Wheat Penny Worth $124M You Could Have at Home" reads one, but the reality is most pennies are worth one cent or possibly a bit more. Reality does not meet the hype, according to one expert. "There are million-dollar pennies, but there are no $100 million pennies," said Donn Pearlman, spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG), a nonprofit organization composed of many of the nation's rare coin experts. "Only a few Lincoln cents dated 1909 to 1958 with the wheat stalks design on the back ("wheat pennies") have sold for $1 million or more." The most valuable U.S. coin ever, a $20 gold piece, a 1933 "Double Eagle" coin, sold for $18.9 million at auction in 2021. The most valuable pennies, which are rare but possibly still in circulation, are 1943 copper Lincoln wheat pennies, a few of which were produced accidentally as the U.S. mints were supposed to use zinc to save copper for the World War II effort, said John Feigenbaum, publisher of rare coin price guide Greysheet. In rare cases, some 1943 pennies have sold for $1 million, while one went for more than $200,000 at an auction in 2019. Depending on their condition, those 1943 Lincoln wheat pennies would be worth at most between $100,000 and $250,000, Feigenbaum told USA TODAY. But the likelihood of having a near-priceless penny is similar to "saying your lottery ticket might be worth $100,000. Of course, anything is possible, right? But not likely," said Feigenbaum, who is also the PNG's executive director. So-called "wheat pennies" get their name from the back of the coin having stalks of wheat encircling the "One Cent" text. They were produced from 1909 to 1958. After that, the wheat stalks were shorn and pennies began displaying an engraving of the Lincoln Memorial. Most Lincoln wheat pennies are not super-valuable and are worth just a few cents more than one cent. However, some may escalate into the hundreds of dollars, depending on the condition and when minted. Certain vintages, especially with minting errors, may be worth thousands. You can see the NGC price guide here. But headlines about super-valuable "Lincoln wheat pennies" stretch the imagination. Most likely, the headlines are created by artificial intelligence to drive traffic to a website, Feigenbaum said. "These coins are improbably in people's change," he said. Still, all the online-stirred interest has resulted in "coin shops being inundated with these folks who believe they have something rare, but they don't," according to Feigenbaum. Increased interest in coins has led to overvalued coins being sold on eBay and Etsy, plus there are counterfeit Lincoln wheat pennies made in China being hawked. "If I've seen these coins ... somebody is every now and again being taken advantage of," Feigenbaum said. Even though the most valuable coins are usually in collections and have very publicly been "sold and resold," Feigenbaum said, sometimes people may inherit a cache of well-preserved coins or purchase some at an estate sale. Go get your coins graded. You can have your coins authenticated at their value, just as jewelry is, from several services, including CAC, Numismatic Guaranty Company, and Professional Coin Grading Service. Read up on your coins. While there are apps you can use to check on your coins, they aren't always accurate. But you can check the value of coins in "The 2026 Red Book: A Guide Book of United States Coins," available in book stores and online on and Barnes and Noble. "It answers all kinds of questions, like, 'Oh, if I'm thinking about collecting Lincoln cents, what can I expect to pay?" said Feigenbaum, one of the book's editors. "You'll see in that book there's no million-dollar cents." This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Trump tells Treasury to stop making pennies, citing production costs
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
With the penny going away, what should you do with the ones in your coin jar?
Learn to love your coins. That's the message from Kevin McColly, CEO of Coinstar, the company behind those coin-cashing machines you see in supermarkets. American consumers made only 16% of their payments in cash in 2023, according to the Federal Reserve. A 2022 Pew survey found that two-fifths of consumers never use cash at all. President Donald Trump has ordered the Treasury to stop minting pennies because their production cost exceeds their value. (Intriguingly, the same is true of nickels.) Many Americans regard both nickels and pennies as more nuisance than currency. The typical household is sitting on $60 to $90 in neglected coins, enough to fill one or two pint-size beer mugs, according to the Federal Reserve. Americans throw away millions of dollars in coins every year, literally treating them like trash. Why do we treat coins like trash? McColly thinks we should change the way we think about coins. To state the obvious, coins are worth money. Coinstar converts $3 billion in coins into spendable cash every year, one coin jar at a time. The average jar yields $58 in buying power. Most of us don't realize how much our coins are worth. Thus, a trip to a coin-exchange kiosk (or a bank, or credit union) can yield a pleasant surprise. 'People underestimate the value of their jar by about half,' McColly said. 'It's a wonderfully pleasurable experience. People have this sensation of found money.' Certain groups of Americans – lower-income households, and those over 55 – still use plenty of cash, the Fed found, along with people who prefer to shop in person. As for the rest of us, McColly thinks it is time for a paradigm shift. Don't think of your coins as clutter. Think of them as recyclables. 'They're metal,' he said, in case we needed a reminder. 'And they have a long and useful life.' The Treasury still mints more than 5 billion coins a year, although the figure is dropping, according to the journal CoinNews. 'Those are just natural resources coming out of the Earth,' McColly said: Copper-plated zinc for pennies, copper-nickel alloys for nickels, dimes and quarters. His point: If Americans got serious about gathering up their idle coins and 'recycling' them into the monetary system, the Mint wouldn't have to make so many new ones. Granted, McColly has a vested interest. His company collects a small cut of the coins that consumers deposit. 'You can go to your own bank or credit union and not pay any fee,' said Kimberly Palmer, personal finance expert at NerdWallet. Both NerdWallet and Bankrate offer tip sheets on exchanging coins for cash. Most banks will take an account holder's coins for free, Bankrate reports, but not all, and you may need to roll the coins yourself. 'I think that a lot of people probably do have hidden coins stashed around their home, and it can be worth their time to go and collect them,' Palmer said. McColly notes that Coinstar generally waives its fee if the depositor chooses to trade in coins for a retail gift card, rather than cash. He is not alone in forecasting a future for the penny, the nickel, and their more profitable kin. 'We've been much slower than parts of Europe and Asia to adopt mobile payments and contactless credit cards,' said Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate. The pandemic delivered a timely reminder of how much we still rely on cash: Consumers and business owners sat on their coins amid a global shutdown, seeding an actual coin shortage. 'It kind of froze the whole system,' Rossman said. While Trump has only instructed the Mint to stop making pennies, some voices have urged America to stop using them. The Common Cents Act, introduced on April 30 by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, would round cash transactions to the nearest five cents. 'The penny is outdated and inefficient and no longer serves the needs of our economy,' said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Democrat. But the bill could push the nation down a slippery slope. 'So, You Want to Get Rid of the Penny,' the New York Times mused in a recent headline. 'Do You Have a Plan for the Nickel?' As it turns out, nixing the penny creates new problems. If America rids itself of pennies, the Times reported, the nation will soon find itself flooded with nickels. The government loses nearly three cents on every penny it mints. On a nickel, it loses nearly nine cents. More nickels would mean steeper losses. America could kill both the penny and the nickel, the two money-losers on its roster of coins. But without pennies or nickels, how would a consumer pay a 15-cent tab? You could round every price to the nearest 10 cents, taking the Common Cents Act a step further. But then, what becomes of the quarter? And so on. Experts say it's highly unlikely. You may have seen one of many headlines blasted online lately about valuable pennies in circulation, "Lincoln Wheat Penny Worth $124M You Could Have at Home" reads one, but the reality is most pennies are worth one cent or possibly a bit more. Reality does not meet the hype, according to one expert. "There are million-dollar pennies, but there are no $100 million pennies," said Donn Pearlman, spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG), a nonprofit organization composed of many of the nation's rare coin experts. "Only a few Lincoln cents dated 1909 to 1958 with the wheat stalks design on the back ("wheat pennies") have sold for $1 million or more." The most valuable U.S. coin ever, a $20 gold piece, a 1933 "Double Eagle" coin, sold for $18.9 million at auction in 2021. The most valuable pennies, which are rare but possibly still in circulation, are 1943 copper Lincoln wheat pennies, a few of which were produced accidentally as the U.S. mints were supposed to use zinc to save copper for the World War II effort, said John Feigenbaum, publisher of rare coin price guide Greysheet. In rare cases, some 1943 pennies have sold for $1 million, while one went for more than $200,000 at an auction in 2019. Depending on their condition, those 1943 Lincoln wheat pennies would be worth at most between $100,000 and $250,000, Feigenbaum told USA TODAY. But the likelihood of having a near-priceless penny is similar to "saying your lottery ticket might be worth $100,000. Of course, anything is possible, right? But not likely," said Feigenbaum, who is also the PNG's executive director. So-called "wheat pennies" get their name from the back of the coin having stalks of wheat encircling the "One Cent" text. They were produced from 1909 to 1958. After that, the wheat stalks were shorn and pennies began displaying an engraving of the Lincoln Memorial. Most Lincoln wheat pennies are not super-valuable and are worth just a few cents more than one cent. However, some may escalate into the hundreds of dollars, depending on the condition and when minted. Certain vintages, especially with minting errors, may be worth thousands. You can see the NGC price guide here. But headlines about super-valuable "Lincoln wheat pennies" stretch the imagination. Most likely, the headlines are created by artificial intelligence to drive traffic to a website, Feigenbaum said. "These coins are improbably in people's change," he said. Still, all the online-stirred interest has resulted in "coin shops being inundated with these folks who believe they have something rare, but they don't," according to Feigenbaum. Increased interest in coins has led to overvalued coins being sold on eBay and Etsy, plus there are counterfeit Lincoln wheat pennies made in China being hawked. "If I've seen these coins ... somebody is every now and again being taken advantage of," Feigenbaum said. Even though the most valuable coins are usually in collections and have very publicly been "sold and resold," Feigenbaum said, sometimes people may inherit a cache of well-preserved coins or purchase some at an estate sale. Read up on your coins. While there are apps you can use to check on your coins, they aren't always accurate. But you can check the value of coins in "The 2026 Red Book: A Guide Book of United States Coins," available in book stores and online on and Barnes and Noble. "It answers all kinds of questions, like, 'Oh, if I'm thinking about collecting Lincoln cents, what can I expect to pay?" said Feigenbaum, one of the book's editors. "You'll see in that book there's no million-dollar cents." Go get your coins graded. You can have your coins authenticated at their value, just as jewelry is, from several services, including CAC, Numismatic Guaranty Company, and Professional Coin Grading Service. Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY's Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @ & @mikesnider & msnider@ This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: With the penny going away how to know if you have one that's valuable
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
With the penny going away, what should you do with the ones in your coin jar?
Learn to love your coins. That's the message from Kevin McColly, CEO of Coinstar, the company behind those coin-cashing machines you see in supermarkets. American consumers made only 16% of their payments in cash in 2023, according to the Federal Reserve. A 2022 Pew survey found that two-fifths of consumers never use cash at all. President Donald Trump has ordered the Treasury to stop minting pennies because their production cost exceeds their value. (Intriguingly, the same is true of nickels.) Many Americans regard both nickels and pennies as more nuisance than currency. The typical household is sitting on $60 to $90 in neglected coins, enough to fill one or two pint-size beer mugs, according to the Federal Reserve. Americans throw away millions of dollars in coins every year, literally treating them like trash. Why do we treat coins like trash? McColly thinks we should change the way we think about coins. To state the obvious, coins are worth money. Coinstar converts $3 billion in coins into spendable cash every year, one coin jar at a time. The average jar yields $58 in buying power. Most of us don't realize how much our coins are worth. Thus, a trip to a coin-exchange kiosk (or a bank, or credit union) can yield a pleasant surprise. 'People underestimate the value of their jar by about half,' McColly said. 'It's a wonderfully pleasurable experience. People have this sensation of found money.' Certain groups of Americans – lower-income households, and those over 55 – still use plenty of cash, the Fed found, along with people who prefer to shop in person. As for the rest of us, McColly thinks it is time for a paradigm shift. Don't think of your coins as clutter. Think of them as recyclables. 'They're metal,' he said, in case we needed a reminder. 'And they have a long and useful life.' The Treasury still mints more than 5 billion coins a year, although the figure is dropping, according to the journal CoinNews. 'Those are just natural resources coming out of the Earth,' McColly said: Copper-plated zinc for pennies, copper-nickel alloys for nickels, dimes and quarters. His point: If Americans got serious about gathering up their idle coins and 'recycling' them into the monetary system, the Mint wouldn't have to make so many new ones. Granted, McColly has a vested interest. His company collects a small cut of the coins that consumers deposit. 'You can go to your own bank or credit union and not pay any fee,' said Kimberly Palmer, personal finance expert at NerdWallet. Both NerdWallet and Bankrate offer tip sheets on exchanging coins for cash. Most banks will take an account holder's coins for free, Bankrate reports, but not all, and you may need to roll the coins yourself. 'I think that a lot of people probably do have hidden coins stashed around their home, and it can be worth their time to go and collect them,' Palmer said. McColly notes that Coinstar generally waives its fee if the depositor chooses to trade in coins for a retail gift card, rather than cash. He is not alone in forecasting a future for the penny, the nickel, and their more profitable kin. 'We've been much slower than parts of Europe and Asia to adopt mobile payments and contactless credit cards,' said Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate. The pandemic delivered a timely reminder of how much we still rely on cash: Consumers and business owners sat on their coins amid a global shutdown, seeding an actual coin shortage. 'It kind of froze the whole system,' Rossman said. While Trump has only instructed the Mint to stop making pennies, some voices have urged America to stop using them. The Common Cents Act, introduced on April 30 by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, would round cash transactions to the nearest five cents. 'The penny is outdated and inefficient and no longer serves the needs of our economy,' said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Democrat. But the bill could push the nation down a slippery slope. 'So, You Want to Get Rid of the Penny,' the New York Times mused in a recent headline. 'Do You Have a Plan for the Nickel?' As it turns out, nixing the penny creates new problems. If America rids itself of pennies, the Times reported, the nation will soon find itself flooded with nickels. The government loses nearly three cents on every penny it mints. On a nickel, it loses nearly nine cents. More nickels would mean steeper losses. More: Fort Smith's Creekmore Park Pool opens for 2025 summer season on May 24 America could kill both the penny and the nickel, the two money-losers on its roster of coins. But without pennies or nickels, how would a consumer pay a 15-cent tab? You could round every price to the nearest 10 cents, taking the Common Cents Act a step further. But then, what becomes of the quarter? And so on. Experts say it's highly unlikely. You may have seen one of many headlines blasted online lately about valuable pennies in circulation, "Lincoln Wheat Penny Worth $124M You Could Have at Home" reads one, but the reality is most pennies are worth one cent or possibly a bit more. Reality does not meet the hype, according to one expert. More: From Charleston to chutes: Sosebee brings laughs, safety to Old Fort Days "There are million-dollar pennies, but there are no $100 million pennies," said Donn Pearlman, spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG), a nonprofit organization composed of many of the nation's rare coin experts. "Only a few Lincoln cents dated 1909 to 1958 with the wheat stalks design on the back ("wheat pennies") have sold for $1 million or more." The most valuable U.S. coin ever, a $20 gold piece, a 1933 "Double Eagle" coin, sold for $18.9 million at auction in 2021. The most valuable pennies, which are rare but possibly still in circulation, are 1943 copper Lincoln wheat pennies, a few of which were produced accidentally as the U.S. mints were supposed to use zinc to save copper for the World War II effort, said John Feigenbaum, publisher of rare coin price guide Greysheet. In rare cases, some 1943 pennies have sold for $1 million, while one went for more than $200,000 at an auction in 2019. Depending on their condition, those 1943 Lincoln wheat pennies would be worth at most between $100,000 and $250,000, Feigenbaum told USA TODAY. But the likelihood of having a near-priceless penny is similar to "saying your lottery ticket might be worth $100,000. Of course, anything is possible, right? But not likely," said Feigenbaum, who is also the PNG's executive director. So-called "wheat pennies" get their name from the back of the coin having stalks of wheat encircling the "One Cent" text. They were produced from 1909 to 1958. After that, the wheat stalks were shorn and pennies began displaying an engraving of the Lincoln Memorial. Most Lincoln wheat pennies are not super-valuable and are worth just a few cents more than one cent. However, some may escalate into the hundreds of dollars, depending on the condition and when minted. Certain vintages, especially with minting errors, may be worth thousands. You can see the NGC price guide here. But headlines about super-valuable "Lincoln wheat pennies" stretch the imagination. Most likely, the headlines are created by artificial intelligence to drive traffic to a website, Feigenbaum said. "These coins are improbably in people's change," he said. Still, all the online-stirred interest has resulted in "coin shops being inundated with these folks who believe they have something rare, but they don't," according to Feigenbaum. Increased interest in coins has led to overvalued coins being sold on eBay and Etsy, plus there are counterfeit Lincoln wheat pennies made in China being hawked. "If I've seen these coins ... somebody is every now and again being taken advantage of," Feigenbaum said. Even though the most valuable coins are usually in collections and have very publicly been "sold and resold," Feigenbaum said, sometimes people may inherit a cache of well-preserved coins or purchase some at an estate sale. Read up on your coins. While there are apps you can use to check on your coins, they aren't always accurate. But you can check the value of coins in "The 2026 Red Book: A Guide Book of United States Coins," available in book stores and online on and Barnes and Noble. "It answers all kinds of questions, like, 'Oh, if I'm thinking about collecting Lincoln cents, what can I expect to pay?" said Feigenbaum, one of the book's editors. "You'll see in that book there's no million-dollar cents." Go get your coins graded. You can have your coins authenticated at their value, just as jewelry is, from several services, including CAC, Numismatic Guaranty Company, and Professional Coin Grading Service. Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY's Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @ & @mikesnider & msnider@ This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: With the penny going away how to know if you have one that's valuable Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
