Message to Collectors About the 1943 Steel Penny

If you have obtained a 1943 steel penny, then I'd your best bet would be to look in your phone book and find a local coin collector or coin collecting group. You could also take it to a local bank and see if they know anyone who can identify it.

I wouldn't consider this a rare find. The mintage for the 1943 steel penny at the Philadelphia mint was 684,628,670, for Denver 217,660,000 and San Francisco 191,550,000.

The value of the ones that are still in circulation are only valued between two and twenty-five cents, due to the fact that millions have been re-plated to look better.

Those that have not been circulated or re-plated at all are only worth a few dollars value.

The 1943 steel penny is a fun collector's item, but the copper penny of that year is where the rarity and money is in the 1943 steel penny debacle.

The 1943 Steel Penny's Counterpart

Due to the error at the US Mint to replace some copper planchets with the new steel ones, a few 1943 copper pennies went into circulation. There is believed to be fourty of these pennies that were produced. However, today, only twelve have been confirmed to exist.

Counterfeiters saw this as an opportunity to make a quick few hundred thousand dollars and there's some fake copper pennies from 1943 out there floating around, often made by copper-plating the 1943 steel penny.

The differences between the real copper penny of 1943 and the one created from the 1943 steel penny:

1) The copper pennies weigh just over 3 grams and steel cents just weigh under 3 grams.
2) Genuine copper pennies will not be attracted to a magnet.

There are other differences to the 1943 copper and 1943 steel penny. However, these two should confirm rather quickly that someone has attempted to rip you off.

The "Oopsies" of the 1943 Steel Penny

The general population of the United States in 1943 disliked the 1943 steel penny. Mainly the reason being that the 1943 steel penny was often mistaken for a dime and there was some cases of 9 cent mistakes being made. In 1943, nine cents was a much greater amount than today and you can understand the hurt of these mistakes that were often made with the poorly made 1943 steel penny.

Lead and steel was a bad combination of metals and these pennies would corrode rather quickly in moist atmospheres or from your very own body oils. Vending machines also experienced the horror of the 1943 steel penny. Being the only piece of currency in American history that can be picked up via magnet, these legitimate coins were confused for steel slugs that the magnets protected against.

As if the US Mint didn't screw up enough with the penny in 1943, some copper planchets were left in the press machines used to produce the now new 1943 steel penny. One of these, discovered in 1958, was sold for $40,000 and another sold in 2004 for over $200,000.

The copper 1943 penny is often a product of counterfeiters.

History of the 1943 Steel Penny

During 1943, the United States was involved in a war. You may know this war by the name World War II. During World War II, there was a massive shortage of copper. Copper was the main ingredient for many artillery supplies in the war. However, it was also the main ingredient for the American penny. Because of this, the US Mint was forced to temporarily halt the production of pennies using copper! The US Mint decided to switch to steel, instead. There was enough copper saved by this decision to produce over 1.2 million shell casings for the US military. Hence, the 1943 steel penny.