1914 D Licoln Cent

The 1914-D is a low mintage coin that slipped below the radar.

The Bryan Barry Specimen
Found in 2017 in a CoinStar machine

Being a new series, it was untested by the collectors of the era, and mintage figures, slow to be publicized, would not be available for a couple years. While many of the 1909-S VDB, recognized as rare early on, were snatched up, it was many years before the 1914-D was noticed as being less populous. By that time, there were few remaining specimens in the higher mint states. An uncirculated example is considered to be a "Conditional Rarity" in that there are fewer of them than the 1909-SVDB, even though 1,193,000 were produced vs 484,000 for the S-VDB. PCGS estimates around 2000 high grade examples survive. In higher grade, they trade for more than the S-VDB.

In any grade, they are hard to find as collectors hold them close.  The supply is far less than demand.  Looking at PCGS population estimates for all grades in RD/RB/BN, about 122,500 specimens survive.  There are an estimated 2 million collectors of Lincoln Cents.

A lower grade 1914-D specimen
held in my personal collection