 There was considerable public excitement over the " small date " and " large date " 1960 and 1960 @-@ D cents , with the small dates being the rarer . The Mint feared the interior of the zero as punched into the die would break away during the coining process , giving the zero a filled @-@ in appearance . To reduce the chance of this happening , the Mint enlarged the date . Sealed bags of 1960 cents , with a face value of $ 50 , sold for as much as $ 12 @,@ 000 . Prices for the small date coins , of which approximately two million had been struck at Philadelphia , continued to increase until 1964 , when the bubble burst . Approximately 500 million of the Denver small date ( out of a total mintage of 1 @.@ 5 billion ) were struck , and are not particularly rare . Bowers points out that there are enough of the 1960 Philadelphia small date known to supply every member of the American Numismatic Association , and every subscriber to the major coin periodicals . 
