Thread: How to spot a reprocessed 1943 Steel Penny

that's pretty shiny

my thoughts exactly...

hmm..thanks for the insight. what exactly are reprocessed pennies?

edit: are reprocessed pennies worth much?

From it's apparent excellant condition I'd say it was just a cleaned regular cent. Many 1943 steel cents were put away due to being so strange back in the 40's. I put away many rolls of them. My Dad had a gas station back then and many of the coins I picked out of his change looked like yours due to his oily hands. After all these years I occationally open one of those plastic rolls of the 43 cents I have and many are still coated with that oil. They do look something like yours. However, I think yours was just cleaned.

Good one Mr.B!
I never noticed that.If you look at the reverse of the cent and look at the lettering,then go to the link I supplied in my other post and look at the illustration,the letters appear almost twice as thick.Most likely from being over-plated.

I was referring to dalau's original photo compared with the one in my last post...sorry.

From what I've heard the enlargement of lettering may not be from recoating, but from the wearing out of the dies. Remember these are steel and not a soft copper material so that the dies wore out much faster. As they wear out the letters and numbers appear to grow. Regardless of whichever that coin is the price of those coins is to minimal to worry about what caused the shine.