How do you recognize a vdb penny?

Answer 1

First check to see if the date is 1909. If it's not, then you don't have a VDB penny. If it is keep reading. Next, check to see if there's a small VDB on the backside close to rim under the letters AME in America. If you see this then you have a VDB penny. If not you don't have one.

Answer 2

So-called VDB cents made up the first issue of Lincoln cents in mid-1909. The initials were those of Victor D. Brenner, the coin's designer. The initials appear on the reverse side of the coin at the bottom, next to the rim.

Lincoln cents were the first US Coins to carry the designer's monogram so prominently. That fact, combined with prejudice against Brenner because he wasn't a Christian, led to a public protest against displaying his initials. After a short time the Mint caved in and removed the initials. Fewer than half a million VDB cents were minted at San Francisco before the design was changed, so those coins remain highly-desirable rarities even today.

In 1918 the Mint restored Brenner's initials but put them in microscopic letters under the fold of Lincoln's coat, at roughly the 7:00 position on the obverse side. They can just be seen with the naked eye but are better viewed with a magnifying glass.

Note that little has changed in the intervening century. The Mint has acquiesced to other protest groups and redesigned coins from the Liberty Standing quarter to the Presidential dollar to meet religious objections.