Lincoln cent · 1969 · San Francisco

1969-S Doubled Die Penny: What It’s Worth and How to Spot One

The 1969-S doubled die is one of the rarest modern pennies, with only about 30 to 50 known. A worn one found in a bank roll sold for $19,800, an uncirculated MS64 Red brought $70,312.50 in 2025, and the finest known sold for $601,875. It must have an S under the date, and the S itself is not doubled.

Updated October 22, 2026 · 10 sources

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1969-S doubled die obverse (FS-101) · Photo: PCGS

Year and mint: 1969, San Francisco (S under the date)
What’s different: Doubled date, LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRUST; the S is single
Known today: About 30 (PCGS) to 40–50 (Stack’s Bowers)
Out of: 544,375,000 regular 1969-S cents
Variety: FS-101 (formerly FS-028) · PCGS #2921 (BN), #2923 (RD)
Metal: 95% copper, 5% zinc · 3.11 g

What it’s worth

With so few known, sales are rare and prices vary widely. These are real auction results including the buyer’s premium.

Condition	Price	Sale
AU55, lightly worn (PCGS), found in a bank roll	$19,800	GreatCollections, November 2014 · source
AU58, barely worn	$28,200	Heritage, July 2013 · source
MS63 Red, uncirculated (PCGS)	$66,000	Heritage, January 2024 · source
MS64 Red, uncirculated (PCGS)	$70,312.50	GreatCollections, September 2025 · source
MS64+ Red, uncirculated (PCGS, CAC)	$97,600	Heritage, January 2026 · source
MS64 Red, uncirculated (PCGS, CAC)	$126,000	Stack’s Bowers, March 2018 · source

$601,875The record: the finest known, PCGS MS66 Red (CAC), the Stewart Blay coin, GreatCollections, January 22, 2023 · source

No worn example has sold publicly since 2014, so the worn prices above are older. A PCGS AU55 brought $54,625 at Heritage in 2009, which shows how much prices for the same grade can vary.

How to tell if you have one

Check for an S under the date. The real doubled die exists only on San Francisco cents. A doubled 1969 with no mint mark is almost certainly one of the famous 1969 fakes.
Look at the date, LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRUST. On a real one every letter and number is boldly doubled, with open space between the two images. You can see it without a magnifier.
Look at the S itself. It should not be doubled: it was punched into the die after the doubling happened.
Rule out machine doubling: flat, shelf-like extra edges with little separation, often on the S too. It’s common on 1969-S cents and adds little or nothing.
Turn it over. Every real one seen by one expert had raised die polish lines near the E of UNITED and through the M of AMERICA.
Never buy one raw. Have it authenticated by PCGS, NGC or CACG.

Coins that fool people

Machine doubling

For every real 1969-S doubled die there are thousands of machine-doubled 1969-S cents. Machine doubling is flat and shelf-like and often hits the S too; the real one is rounded and separated, with a single S.

The 1969 counterfeits

The fakes made in 1969 were dated 1969 with no mint mark. A real doubled die has the S.

Added mint marks and faked doubling

Coins with an S glued on or doubling faked by tooling are sold online. Buy only certified coins.

The 1955 and 1972 doubled dies

Real doubled dies that look similar but have different dates. The 1969-S is far rarer than either.

The story

In 1969 two counterfeiters, Roy Gray and Morton Goodman, made fake 1969 doubled die cents and got a collector to sell them. He turned 85 of them over to the Secret Service, and agents raided Gray’s home in July 1969. Both men went to prison.

Then in 1970 collectors started finding real 1969-S doubled dies, from San Francisco. Because agents were already hunting fake 1969 doubled dies, the Secret Service seized the real ones as counterfeits too, and some were ordered destroyed.

The government eventually accepted that the San Francisco coins were real and returned at least some of them. PCGS says fewer than 100 were likely made, and only about 30 to 50 are known today.

They still turn up: in 2014 a collector in Louisville found one in a bank roll of circulated cents, and it sold for $19,800. Scott Schechter and Jeff Garrett ranked it No. 2 in their book 100 Greatest U.S. Modern Coins.

Doubled 1969-S? Check it before anything else.

Most doubled-looking 1969-S pennies are machine doubled. The real one is worth tens of thousands. Scan it with AnyCoins and see what you have.

Open AnyCoins and photograph the heads side, then the tails side, in good light.
AnyCoins identifies the coin and checks it for known errors and varieties.
You see its condition estimate, a price range by condition and what the same coin has sold for.

Why collectors use AnyCoins

Photograph both sides and it names the coin: country, year, mint and denomination.
Values from real sales: a price range by condition and recent sales of the same coin, not a guess.
A condition estimate from your photos, so you know which row of the price table you’re in.
Checks the coin for known errors and varieties, the kind that turn a cent into thousands.
Melt value for silver and gold, and the mint that struck it on the Mint Map.

Questions people ask

How much is a 1969-S doubled die penny worth?

Tens of thousands of dollars or more if real. A PCGS AU55 sold for $19,800 in 2014, a PCGS MS64 Red sold for $70,312.50 in September 2025, and the finest known brought $601,875 in January 2023.

How many 1969-S doubled die pennies are there?

PCGS experts suggest about 30 are known; Stack’s Bowers estimates 40 to 50 from certification data. PCGS says fewer than 100 were likely made.

Why did the Secret Service seize 1969-S doubled die pennies?

Agents were already chasing counterfeit 1969 doubled die cents, so when real 1969-S coins appeared in 1970 they were seized as fakes, and some were destroyed before the government accepted them as real.

My 1969-S penny looks doubled. Is it the rare one?

Probably not: machine doubling is common on 1969-S cents. The real one shows bold, separated doubling on the date, LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRUST, but no doubling on the S.

Sources

Prices are public auction results including the buyer’s premium unless marked as a price guide. A coin’s value depends on its exact condition and on having it certified by a grading service such as PCGS or NGC.