I started collecting Lincoln pennies when I was a kid (before the Lincoln Memorial reverse). I have a nearly complete set (no errors), I never bought one but my grandma gave me a 1909-S (not VDB) as a gift.
Every single one, except for grandma’s gift, I got from pocket change.
Now, did the mint produce proof coins in 1909? I suppose it’s possible. Can a copper/bronze cent minted in 1909, proof or not, look like the coin in that photo? Almost certainly not.
The financialization of coin collecting ruined the hobby for me. One of the keys to this was the “grading” industry. PCGS has always had a good reputation, but in addition to grade, provenance of a coin like that is very important, because - the market is flooded with Chinese counterfeits, some of which are very, very good.
On eBay, there are lots of obvious counterfeit coins for sale, mostly easy to spot because of condition inconsistent with age.
Before I dropped $$ on a PR67 1909 VDB cent, I’m not sure that there even could be enough reliable information to show that it was real.
I have a nearly complete collection back to 1897 to 1949.
The die characteristics for the Proof 1909 VDB are well known, there’s no doubt as to the authenticity of these pieces. The Chinese fakes have gotten pretty good, but so far they haven’t reached the level of actually duplicating individual dies.