These Rare 1955 Wheat Pennies In Your Coin Collection Could Be Worth $20,000 or More

I have an old Wheat Penny collection that I inherited and I'm shocked by how many different errors were made during production of these pennies. What was meant to be worth 1 cent can now be worth thousands. If you have the right one. That's why I shake my head when I see people at the Fort Myers, Florida Publix pouring their change into the coin machine. Did you take the time to go through that change? Probably not. Earlier I wrote about the super rare 1943 Wheat penny. I only had one penny from 1943, and it wasn't the one worth the money. Then I read about the 1955 Doubled Die Lincoln Penny. I found 14 of those 1955 wheat pennies in my collection.

According to The Spruce Crafts, "In 1955 a die maker at the United States Mint facility in Philadelphia made a mistake while manufacturing a working coin die for the Lincoln cent." An alignment issue caused the date and the letters to be doubled. As many as 24,000 of these error coins were made. But where was quality control? Well. The thought is was that the coins were produced on an overnight shift and no one was watching the press. Perhaps the employees started the machines and went down to the Reading Terminal Market for cheesesteaks. With the press running at 200 coins per minute that's about 2 hours before someone noticed. If you know the layout of downtown Philly, you know the math checks out.

Interestingly enough, the error was spotted before the coins were circulated. But they were mixed in with about 10 million other pennies so rather than scrap the whole batch they sent them out. Here's a look at the 1955 penny you're searching for.

Image courtesy of Professional Coin Grading Service - Public Domain,

In this example, the doubling is very obvious. I have 14 pennies from 1955 and none of them have the doubling so it looks like I'm still considering selling internal organs to make rent. I kid, sorta. it would have been nice. My penny is worth 6 cents Did you find the doubled one? Here's what you can expect, and it's all about the condition.

If your penny is beat up, it should still be worth at least a couple thousand. Perfect condition can be valued up to $288,000. This video breaks down the values a bit better.

One word of caution before you get too excited. Because this coin is so popular, there are forgeries. You'll need to get your penny professionally graded before you start planning on what to do with the money.

Next up, let's see if we can find the rare 1983 penny. Actually, there's around 5,000 of them out there so odds are a little better. That one could net you $7,000.

This can't be good. The 2023 Hurricane Names list is out. It looks like it's already time to start thinking about the hurricane season in Southwest Florida. But why did they have to name one of this year's storms "Lee"? Like Lee County wasn't punished enough last year, let's go ahead and do this.

The National Hurricane Center is making a change to reporting of the storms for the 2023 season. Instead of the usual 5 day, they're switching to a 7-day tropical weather outlook. More info and a longer timeline is always better. The yellow, orange, and red color coding for development will not change and we'll still get regular updates at 2 p.m., 8 p.m., 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. EDT.

As far as the names go, they use a list that repeats every 6 years minus the really bad ones. The 2017 season was ugly. The season featured 17 named storms, 10 hurricanes, and 6 major hurricanes. Three of the names that year were retired, Harvey, Irma and Maria. You'll certainly remember Irma as it hit Southwest Florida near Marco Island as a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 115 mph. The name 'Irma' has been retired. Then there was last year's Ian.  This year's 'I' storm will be named Idalia. I'm not sure how to pronounce that and here's to hoping we don't have to learn.

Here's the 2023 Hurricane Names, and a fact about that last time each name was used.

In 2017, Tropical Storm Arlene formed on April 16. It was not a major storm, but it kinda let us know what was coming.

The 2017 version of Bret targeted Venezuela in June.

The 2017 Tropical Storm Cindy targeted  Louisiana, spawned tornadoes, and killed 3. 

In July of 2017, Tropical Storm Don formed but didn't last.

2017 Emily directed effected us. Heavy rainfall produced by Emily caused widespread flooding in Polk and Pinellas counties. Coastal flooding was reported in Hillsborough,  Manatee,  Sarasota, Lee, and Collier counties, causing additional road closures. A tornado touched down Bradenton, destroying two barns and multiple greenhouses. The storm indirectly led to flooding in Miami where 6.97 in of rain fell in 3.5 hours. 

The 2017 Hurricane Franklin hit central America on July 27th.

The 2017 Hurricane Gert skirted by North Carolina's Outer Banks and then set it's sights on - Ireland. That's right, Gert looped all the way back around and was responsible for flooding in Ireland.

Harold is new to list after the 2017 Harvey was retired. However, the name Harold has been used before. Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold was a very powerful tropical cyclone which caused widespread destruction in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Tonga during April 2020.

The next new name to the list. NOAA actually a pronunciation list. Idalia ee-DAL-ya. Maybe the I storm can skip us this year.

2017 Hurricane Jose was massive and nearly a category 5.  But then, a large mid-latitude low-pressure area offshore Atlantic Canada and the circulation associated with Hurricane Irma resulted in the collapse of steering currents, causing Jose to decelerate and execute a cyclonic loop. Off to sea.

Katia KAH-tyah

In September of 2017,  Katia struck Mexico just days after a major earthquake struck the country

On September 26, 2017 Hurricane Lee became a Cat 2 but was never a threat to land. I do wish, however, that NHC would consider not using the name seeing as how large portions of Lee County are still a mess from last year. It's not like we need the reminder.

A new name after the 2017 Maria name was retired. I'm assuming they picked the name Margot after watching Christmas Vacation. If a Hurricane Margot forms this year, I'd expect memes.

Clearly a Spinal Tap reference. Again, expect memes.

In 2017, Ophelia went to the right. On October 16, Ophelia ceased to be a tropical cyclone after merging with a strong cold front about 310 mi  southwest of Mizen Head, Ireland. The extratropical low made landfall on the west coast of Ireland at Category 1-equivalent intensity later that day, several hours before striking northern Scotland. 

Philippe fee-LEEP

The 2017 Tropical Storm Philippe spawned three  tornadoes in southeastern Florida. One of those damaged dozens of homes in Boynton Beach, while another produced a wind gust of 74 mph in West Palm Beach.

Rina REE-nuh

2017 Tropical Storm Rina formed on November 7th and did not make landfall.

Rina was the last named storm of 2017. The 2011 Tropical Storm Sean was the last named storm of 2011. It formed on November 8th and didn't amount to much.

Let's just hope we don't get this far.

Hopefully not needed.

That's the last on the list. Here's to hoping we don't need them.

Some info from Wikipedia was used. The names list comes from the National Hurricane Center. They've actually posted a preliminary list all the way through 2027 but will make updates if any of the names are retired.