Real Or Fake 1943 D Copper Cent?

Thanks tropicalbats. I appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into your response and the willingness to teach. I'll get it checked out by a friend and take a look into those Serbian dies.

No no it's perfectly fine. It was my fault. I'm glad to hear that you're here for the hobby! Sounds good, I'm looking forward to the results. Even if it is a fake, fakes are still cool in their own right, and this is a decent one too. So either way, you've got a nice coin on your hands!

I tried finding the photos of transfer die counterfeit for you Firefox, but couldn't locate them. This coin has alot of markers you see with those. The Obverse rim changes depth and thickness multiple times, and Lincoln is lacking so much detail. As one contributer pointed out, this planchet being struck in place of a steel one should have resulted in very strong details. However, there are many spots that are very soft and flat. It really feels and looks like the design was transferred from a coin with some wear. Since there are some genuine concerns, maybe make your purchase of the coin contingent on it being authenticated by a TPG.

I'd rather not say what I paid, but compared to my research on known fakes and the refund policy, it certainly looked worth a small gamble. There weren't any serious red flags with the seller ie. they weren't trying to sell a known counterfeit. They were given the coin as a gift by an elderly neighbor who said it was worth "a lot of money." Value being totally subjective and most pennies worth about $.02, the seller probably googled "1943 penny" and seeing $10,000 steelies, figured it'd be worth considerably less as a copper one. I've asked for more info from where the neighbor got it.

Can you crop and enlarge that photo?

Thank you very much GrapeCollects. Your input is tremendously insightful. What a story. How many collectors, let alone people, can confidently say they've seen and contributed to authenticating such a rare coin not currently in the registry? I had considered that with relatively many known 43p and s examples, surely more employees at Denver had thought to do the same.
I'd say the current input in just a day regarding this piece has already been very encouraging and an amazing crash course in authentication.
Thank you all. I'll continue to keep this thread informed with updates and please continue to share additional revelations as they arise.

As for a 43-D Copper Cent? Only 6 people actually have seen it and know who owns it. Though there are other rarities out there that exist, 33 $20s in private hands, and similar coins are out there. Of course provenance is paramount when such coins are traded, that and a very trustworthy circle.




The entirety of the Philadelphia and San Francisco population, in my opinion, was done by accident, I have no reason to believe that those coins were coined purposefully.

The big tell is condition, there are very, very few UNCs and most are very low end, arguably mishandled UNCs. The two Denver examples however are both choice UNCs and are remarkably well preserved. The example I handled I would grade MS-65 perhaps MS-66, either way it falls into the Gem Uncirculated territory. The Philadelphia mint had poor quality control, and as such it's so surprise to me that a few leftover copper blanks ended up in the hoppers in 1943.

The San Francisco mint had much better quality control and generally coined much higher quality coins, however during the war years quality control lapsed, that lapse extended until 1947. They drove their dies to the ends of their lives, from working dies to working hubs resulting in poor strikes and extremely late die state coins. The best example as far as I am concerned is the 1946-S Lincoln Cent. Many working dies were produced from a worn or poorly produced working hub, and as such many examples showed what appeared to be extreme die wear around the date and Mint Mark area.

The Denver mint however has generally had extremely good quality control and produced much fewer major errors than its two counterparts. As such it is no surprise to me that of the 3 mints that produced steel cents, the Denver mint has the lowest pop of off metal errors.

The incentive was surely there, though as far as I'm concerned the only workers who actually went through with it were those at the Denver mint.


More importantly, your coin. As previously indicated by tropicalbats, the weakness around Trust is typical, though not present on all coins. I do not believe this to be a Chinese fake as those would be much lower quality, though I, at this time, do find the authenticity questionable. Frankly, the only way to be sure would be to examine it in hand myself, and even then I may differ, and likely would differ for council.

I can see on your profile you are based in Colorado, you may consider taking to coin to Hallenbeck Coin as they are reliable, though my interactions with them have been extremely limited outside of a pair of brief conversations at shows. You are also in proximity to ANACS, a large grading service. If Hallenbeck don't give you what you deem as a satisfactory answer, or believe it may be genuine, you may consider submitting the coin to ANACS. The cost would be considerably lower than that of PCGS or NGC.

All that said, I'm not comfortable saying it's fake, nor am I comfortable saying it could be real. Anything is possible, though my gut feeling is it's almost certainly not. As stated previously, if I personally was to give an opinion I'd really want to see the coin in hand.