Aug. 13, 1909 (Friday)

FARMER IS CAPTIVATED BY NEW PENNY -- OFFERS $1 APIECE: The new Lincoln cents have really gotten the attention of a farmer named Ephraim Baldwin of South Egremont in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. According to today's Globe, Baldwin told local youngsters that he would give them one dollar for each new Lincoln cent (right) they could get ahold of. The penny-hunters scoured the village and came up with 28 cents, for which Baldwin paid the handsome price of $28.

In Pittsfield, Mass. -- also in the western part of the state -- a business took the opposite approach. In an attempt to build traffice, it sold two Lincoln pennies for one cent as part of an advertising scheme.

The Baldwin price of $1 for each coin was, of course, quite high. Today that dollar would be worth about $20. The coins? Well it looks as though they have jumped in value far faster than inflation. I think many of the 1909 issues (not, of course, the VDB minted in San Francisco) can be bought for between $6 and $10. However, the Baldwin price looks very good 100 years down the road when you look at this offer from Home Shopping Network.