I gave away my most valuable coin.

What is the most valuable Lincoln penny? The book value of a top pop 1909 S VDB or 1955 DDO is over $10,000. A 1922 will run you more than 10 times that amount at close to $125,000. I can safely say that these figures are not pocket change for most collectors and those prices are certainly well out of the range of my budget. Yet, I would argue that my most valuable penny was worth considerably more and I gave it away.

One day in my class I was taking about my coin collection to the kids. Interestingly enough, a good number of the kids showed a surprising interest and most didn?t realize that Lincoln pennies had been around for 100 years and they were even more surprised to hear about the evolution of the penny through the years. But before I continue, let me tell you about the kids I teach.

The kids I teach and love to work with are the kids most teachers do not want in their classroom. My kids have failed most of their classes and tend to be a real distraction in the classroom. Most of them do not want to be in school. They just carry a lot of baggage with them. I think the kids in my classes lead the entire high school in days of suspension to days attended. But these are good kids they just have a propensity to make bad decisions. Anyway, I digress.

I have one kid who failed every single class last year. He took an unusual interest in coins for some odd reason. My conversation about coins and pennies in particular lasted for several days. One night I was working with my penny album. I think I must have gotten a roll of wheat pennies that day or something. I began to think about the young man in my class that seemed to be developing an interest in coins. I went through my pennies and pulled a nice, probably XF, 1919 penny from one of my many tubes of extra wheat pennies. I carded it up, labeled it, and put it with my stuff to take to school the next day. At the end of class I gave the young man the penny. His eyes lit up. It was like I gave the kid a new highly addictive drug.

The young man and I have had a running conversation about coins all semester long. I?ve even given him a few other coins over the course of the semester. The young man is still having trouble with his grades in school except in my class where he has the highest average of any of my kids in any of my classes. His work is always done and he studies so he does well on quizzes and tests. On Parents? Night, his mother stopped by my room to thank me for working with her son. She was amazed at how well he was doing and at his new found interest in coins. On last Friday the last day of school before break, I asked my kids what they were hoping to get for Christmas and my young friend said the number one thing at the top of his list was a penny album.

I think that 1919 penny will always be in my mind the most valuable penny I have every owned and I am glad to have given it away. Perhaps this young man will become more than an amateur coin collector over time but one thing is for sure, through a strange twist of fate and a 1919 penny this young man now understands that he can be and how to be successful in school. I can think no more valuable gift to give to a young person.