AboutMyCoin1923-S Wheat Penny in MS61RD
A 1923-S Wheat penny graded MS61RD is that coin in one particular state of preservation — the date and the mint mark are already fixed, and MS61RD is what a grader called the surface that survived. What that looks like on this coin is below. Where the grade sits against the rungs either side of it, and every way it is written on a slab, are in the table below.
What MS61RD means
A 1923-S Wheat penny in Mint State (MS-61) Red has no wear whatever and is graded near the floor of mint state for its surfaces alone: the open fields before and behind Lincoln’s portrait carry heavy and obvious contact marks and the lustre is present but broken. It is one step off the bottom of the grade, and what separates it from sixty is that the marks are fewer rather than lighter. Red means at least ninety-five per cent of the original mint red is still on both faces. Copper starts to turn the day it leaves the press, so red on a 1923-S Wheat penny is a statement about how it was stored rather than about how it was struck, and it is worth a multiple of the same coin in brown.
A slab, a dealer’s list or a price guide may write this grade MS61 RD, MS-61RD or MS-61 RD. They are the same grade and the same 1923-S Wheat penny.
Where this grade sits
The grades a 1923-S Wheat penny is given run from PO1 to MS70RD. One step up from MS61RD is Mint State (MS-62) Red. In general terms, the higher the grade the more the coin is worth.
A blank in the value column is a grade this site has not researched, not a grade the coin is worth nothing in.
How to check this yourself
Sold listings, not asking prices. The link below is already filtered to completed sales of a 1923-S Wheat penny in MS61RD, which is the difference between what somebody paid and what somebody hoped for. Until this site has a researched figure for this grade, that search is the answer — take the middle of several recent sales rather than the highest.
Where these figures come from
We gather publicly available data from several public sources including eBay, PCGS, NGC, Numista, USA Coin Book, PriceCharting, and others.
Not an appraisal. AboutMyCoin estimates from published specifications and does not authenticate or grade coins.
1923-S Wheat Penny: every grade, the metal and the specification →