1943 steel penny

How to read it

The US Mint struck nearly all 1943 cents in zinc-coated steel because copper and nickel were needed for the war effort; its history timeline gives a copper shortage as the reason. The design is the ordinary Lincoln wheat cent. PCGS CoinFacts describes the grey, silver-like surfaces, lists a weight of 2.70 grams and a Philadelphia mintage of 684,628,670, and says steel cents were struck at Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco, with no proofs that year. Denver coins carry a D and San Francisco coins an S; Philadelphia coins have no mint mark. PCGS says 1943 is the only year the Mint struck steel coins.

Also searched as: 1943 penny, 1943 steel cent, steel penny.

The 1943 copper penny

A few 1943 cents were struck in copper by mistake. The US Mint says about 40 are known, that coin experts think they were struck when copper-alloy blanks left over from 1942 stayed in the press hopper as steel production began, and that the Mint did not officially release them. NGC calls them transitional errors: a few dozen struck on bronze planchets instead of steel.

The 1944 steel cent

The same mistake happened the other way round in 1944, when the Mint went back to mostly copper cents. PCGS CoinFacts says a 1944 steel cent was struck either on a steel blank left over from 1943 or on a steel blank meant for a foreign coin, and puts the survivors at 25 to 30 pieces. NGC reports them from all three mints.

Steel or copper?

NGC gives the expected weights: 2.70 grams for a cent struck on a steel planchet, 3.11 grams for one on the mostly copper planchets of the time. The US Mint describes a magnet test: a 1943 cent that sticks to a magnet is steel, not copper.

Look-alikes

The US Mint says the 1943 copper cent has been counterfeited by coating steel cents with copper, and by altering the dates on 1945, 1948 and 1949 cents. A copper-coated steel cent still sticks to a magnet.