1978 D penny errors: what's catalogued and what sold

The Denver Mint struck 4,280,233,400 cents dated 1978, so an ordinary worn 1978-D penny is worth one cent. NGC's price guide, a retail list for collectors buying single coins, puts every circulated grade at $0.05 (last updated August 14, 2023). NGC, a major coin grading service, catalogues no 1978 cent variety (a die with its own recorded feature) from any mint. The specialist site CopperCoins attributes two minor dies (a die is the engraved steel tool that stamps each penny): one with slightly thickened letters on the front, and one where the D was punched twice. Its own guide prices them from $2 to $40. Genuine mint errors, coins that went wrong in the press, sold for more: the documented sales we could trace ran from $99 to $384. The top one, listed as a 1978-D cent struck on a blank meant for a dime and graded MS63 by PCGS (a grade for an unworn coin), sold at Heritage on January 2, 2023.

How to read a 1978-D penny

Look on the front, under the date. A small D there means Denver. US Mint marks moved to the front of coins in 1968, the Mint says, and CoinWeek places the D and S marks on these cents below the date. A 1978 cent with no letter is a different coin: it came from Philadelphia, San Francisco or West Point, which together made 5,558,605,000 of them (NGC; Wikipedia's mintage table splits that total among the three). The penny with no mint mark guide covers that one.

Every 1978 cent is 95% copper and 5% zinc and weighs 3.11 grams, according to PCGS and NGC. (NGC's label says "Brass"; it is the same alloy.) The US Mint kept that mix until 1982, when the cent became copper-plated zinc at 2.5 grams, NGC notes. That switch is why weighing a 1982 penny can tell you something; on a 1978 penny it can't. A 3.11 gram reading is simply the normal coin. The year when weighing matters is covered in the 1982 penny guide.

1978 D penny error list

Each sale below has a date, a lot number and a price, all from NGC Auction Central, which repeats Heritage results with their lot numbers (Heritage shows prices only to signed-in visitors). The error names are less firm. We could not open the lot pages, so every name comes from web-search summaries of the auction listings that match the date, grade and price. Read each one as likely, and unconfirmed by us.

A planchet is the blank metal disc a coin is stamped from. NGC files the dime-blank coin under its Red label, but a cent struck on a clad dime blank has no copper surface, so that label describes nothing you would see. Off center means the blank sat partly outside the dies (the steel stamps that carry the design), leaving a crescent of bare metal. A cud is a raised blob where a piece of the die broke away. Red Brown means part of the original copper color has toned; more on that below.

We found no documented 1978-D sale for a broadstrike, a clipped blank or a peeling lamination. Some may exist; none of the sources we could reach recorded one with a lot and a price.

The doubled die and the repunched D

These two are die varieties: every coin struck by that die carries the same feature. CopperCoins (Chuck Daughtrey's site) lists exactly two for 1978-D. Their values below are CopperCoins' guide, not sales.

A repunched mint mark is a D punched into the die twice, the second time slightly off the first. The doubled die is the mild kind CopperCoins calls "distended hub doubling": thick letters, not two clear copies. Neither appears in NGC's variety list. F12 is a worn grade; gem means a top-quality unworn coin.

Error, damage or machine doubling

PCGS writer Jon Sullivan draws the line at the final strike of the dies: whatever goes wrong before it is a mint error, and whatever happens after it is post-mint damage, even inside the Mint's own sorting and counting machines. A bent, scraped, plated or squashed 1978-D penny is damage, and damage carries no collector premium.

Letters that look doubled usually come from machine doubling, which happens during the strike. NGC calls it "flat, shelf-like" and "a mere novelty", adding that it "does not usually add value". A true doubled die is cut into the die itself, so the doubling shows "on every coin struck from that die". Mint errors versus damage puts the two side by side in pictures.

1978-D penny value by grade

Unworn coins are graded MS60 to MS70 (MS means mint state: no wear from circulation). Copper cents also get a color: Red (RD) still shows its original mint color, Red Brown (RB) has partly toned, and Brown (BN) has toned all over. Coin grading basics explains the scale. NGC's price guide reads:

The Brown column was last updated on August 14, 2023. The Red and Red Brown columns date from July 16, 2019, so treat them as old.

NGC's census (the tally of coins it has certified) shows 346 1978-D cents as of October 27, 2026. Nothing tops MS67, and only 18 of the Red coins reach that grade. PCGS's Jaime Hernandez calls the date "very common" and writes that it is "only scarce in MS67 and anything grading higher is considered rare." PCGS also estimates 8,560,466 survive in MS65 or better.

The best regular sale PCGS records is $546 for an MS67 at Heritage on September 1, 2008. More recent MS67 Red coins graded by PCGS sold at Heritage for $312 (April 30, 2023), $204 (June 12, 2019), $180 (October 8, 2017) and $258.50 (January 31, 2016), per NGC Auction Central. One grade lower drops fast: two MS66 Red coins sold at GreatCollections on September 7, 2014 for $86 (PCGS) and $27 (NGC).

Myths, answered

Checking a penny you think is special

Neither a grade nor the difference between an error and damage can be settled from a picture. For a 1978-D cent the line between $0.05 and a few hundred dollars is one grade step and a color label, judged in hand. If yours looks off center or the wrong color, have a dealer examine it in hand, or submit it to PCGS or NGC, before putting a price on it. Leave it uncleaned. Selling options are in our notes on selling a coin you own.

Buck, the app behind this page, identifies a coin from a photo of its front and then its back, one coin per shot, on iPhone and Android. It shows an estimate, never an offer to buy. Since a photo cannot settle a grade, it will not vouch for an error either.

Sources for this page

All read on October 27, 2026: NGC Coin Explorer (Denver mintage, specifications, the 1982 change); NGC's price guide (Brown updated August 14, 2023; Red and Red Brown July 16, 2019); NGC's census; NGC VarietyPlus (no 1978 variety); NGC Auction Central (every sale price and lot number); NGC on doubled dies versus machine doubling; PCGS CoinFacts (specifications, survival estimate, Jaime Hernandez's note, the $546 record); Jon Sullivan's PCGS piece on errors and post-mint damage; CopperCoins' two die pages; the US Mint on mint marks and on the cent's alloy; CoinWeek on where the D sits; Wikipedia's Lincoln cent mintage table.