Red 1936 Wheat US Penny Cent

Kind of beat up to be worth much.

Environmental damage gives copper that very dark red colour-really a thin coating that does not come off.

to the Community!

Your post was moved to the appropriate forum for the proper attention.

I also have a "red penny" or "red cent" which appears similar to the one above.


United States Cent 1934-D

It has been painted red at one time.

I had heard a long time ago that travelling circuses and carnivals would paint pennies red and put them into circulation as a form of advertising.

Has anyone else seen this story?

I would be curious to see the obverse (heads) side of the original poster's cent.

Beautiful example!

I have wrote up on this in the past, and not really feeling it today to do it again so extensively with all the sciency stuff. but here goes the abridged version.

There's a few different copper oxides red, black, and blue/green (like on the statue of liberty).

This is red copper oxide, also known as Copper(I) Oxide. the formula is Cu2O
easiest and fastest way to reproduce it would be to let it sit in a fountain for a good while that is heavily oxygenated, and chlorinated.
it could also be created by plating copper with silver, then exposing some of the copper and leaving it in high humidity, the galvanic corrosion will cause "red plague" to the copper and create Cu#8322;O out of the copper. the copper becomes an anode and is sacrificed.

same kind of reason zincolns break down so quickly if the copper plating is penetrated, some moisture or dampness, and the zinc sacrifices in a galvanic corroding process and zinc oxide is formed which is white.

I have no idea about this red penny and circuses thing, but my guess is it's a urban myth. I don't know why painting one red would indicate to anyone the circus is in town, I think there must have been better ways to advertise after printing presses were invented,,,, or handwriting.