Wheat penny value back then?

DiamondJim

New Member
Joined
Apr 5, 2010
Messages
5
Location
Kansas
This week I found, after many hours of very tough hunting over 3 days, 2 wheat pennies on an old homestead which is now Ag ground. One is a 1910 and the other is a 1918-S. They have a present day coin collector value of 16 cents and 14 cents respectively. However, they are priceless to me because I found them on my Great-great-great grandparents homestead established in 1864. And the year 1918 is the year my mother was born. My G-G-G grandparents built the first log house on this homestead and I remember living in it during the late 40's. My question: Does anyone know the present day value of these pennies to those people back on those dates? Where would I find such information?
 
References say about 23 cents purchasing power in 1910 compared to 2009. But in rural areas the value of 'hard' currency was greater than in the city- there the value could be more like 50 cents. Rural people didn't carry money on a daily basis and this means fewer coins were dropped so any finds are fortunate.
 
Purchasing power is a hard thing to quantify especially when it comes to land. Taking the purchase price of a ranch bought by my grandparents in 1946 I used their matrix to find the relative value in 2009 dollars- it came out with 320K but the ranch (still rural) now would market for 6,000K. Even very remote poor lands near here (central TX) sell for about 9 times the expected value run through the '46 matrix...hmm. Looks like land is more than just an inflation hedge.
 
Great Info

Thanks everyone for the info regarding the pennies I found on an old homestead. Blimey, your post on measuring worth is great. Just what I asked for. It is a favorite of mine now.

For what it is worth, I am swearing off on old homesteads, except family, used in Ag now because after a hard week of searching it is too difficult locating coins. Even on DFX's coin software when I do get a hit it shows coins and values and generally winds up being metal and/or trash aluminum. I am convinced that the chemicals used in farming over the years have contributed to this as I have no problems finding coins in areas not farmed. However, the pennies I found on my family homestead are priceless and I will keep searching my families ground from time to time because of heritage.
Any future searching now on these homesteads will be clean sweeping which means I plan to pick up everything. Even a rein holder is a good find I've made.
 
Back
Top Bottom