Golden Penny--What The Heck?

It may have been gold plated which may also give it a cleaned/glossy/polished look. Post a picture and it would be easier to tell exactly what it is. It is though, with great odds, PMD.

It has probably been gold leafed, I found one like that yesterday. Someone times artists decide to paint things gold because, well, I don't always try to understand, but my wife is an artist my other half understands. hah. Anyway, gold leaf is a pain that is gold colored. its actually an odd paint, because if you put some on a paper towel, the water will soak into the tower by the normal capillary action, but the water leaves it reddish, then the gold color is left behind as a solid.

Anyway, that's probably what you're looking at. There are ways to zinc coat a penny, the heat it to alloy the zinc and copper together (making brass) and make it look really cool and gold-like, but if your's looks cheesy, I'm betting gold leaf.

People and usually kids do all sorts of things with coins. And Pennies are the usual subjects. One thing done a lot is to polish them with a auto car polish to demonstrate how well that product works. Kids in school chem classes do all sorts of things with coins and then just put them back in change.
Of course out Mint may have made one out of pure Gold and put it in with all the others just for fun. Not hardly likely though.

I also did the zinc plating/brass coating of pennies in chemistry class.

Yeah that looks too detailed to be gold leaf, though I'm no expert in that art. It looks exactly like the zinc-coated-copper turned to brass thing from my Chem class. I suppose a very fine coat of high quality paint could pull off the same effect, but I'd be willing to bet (if I were a betting man) that it's brass from someone's chem class.

I think it is just toning. I have found a few that toned gold/ cheesy. it is a nice look

Weezer1878 I have found numerous pennies and other coins that look like there were painted with red nail polish. I always attributed that to it being to close to an exploding dye pack and getting tainted.

Although I've never been near such an episode, I always thought that that was what was causing the problem noted. Anyone else have an opinion.

But Nina I do believe that the difference that you noted could be how different penny colors age and change over a period of time. I've seen many coins with color variations. As a matter of fact there was a thread on another forum where someone created an American flag using differently toned pennies to create the stars, field, and stipes. I think that I had bookmarked the thread because I was thinking of creating such a flag for myself. If I can find the particular thread I will post it here. However, I'm not sure if I can post a reference to another forum without either getting in trouble or having it deleted by the moderators.

The main point is, that pennies have been known to tone to different color values naturally. The color toning that you mention could possibly be used to create the white stars.