Reprocessed Steel Cent Question

"Reprocessed" is just a fancy and intentionally confusing term for replated.

I got fooled by one once. I still have it for reference. This subject came up in another thread a while back and so I took a picture of a circulated one, and uncirculated one, and a replated one. In case it is of any use here it is again.

Right side .

Yes, sorry, I should have made that clear. The right side is replated. It has a yellow tinge and the details aren't quite as sharp. If you look at the last "t" in Trust you can see it isn't very sharp on the right one. I bought the one on the left from a CCF member several years ago. Forget who, but I remember him being trustworthy enough based on his posts to feel confident I was getting the real thing after being tricked on ebay by the one on the right.

Not sure why so many dislike those. If done properly, and in a high grade, looks almost like what the Mint produced. Remember they too plated them. They were not born that way. I have over 4,000 of those Steel Cents. Over the years I have tried to accumulate rolls of each type of plated ones. Some are Zinc plated, some are Chromed, some are Tinned. The Chromed ones are the hardest to find. Wish I could find more of those. I've got several rolls of the Zinc plated ones and several rolls of the original ones. I've shown some of the better Zinc plated ones to many dealers and they couldn't tell. All thought they were original. ORIGINAL? As I said remember that the Mint originally plated them. They were not made with Zinc coatings. They were plated.

w/ Conder. That is my understanding of how the coins were produced (planchets punched from a zinc-plated sheet then struck into coins, thus showing bare steel on the edges).

Original uncirculated steel cents have a frosty, almost matte-like finish.

Stripped and replated steel cents have an almost mirror or semi proof-like finish. Sometimes they end up having a bluish tint when held at an angle.

Back in the old days you could buy a chemical solution and strip the Zinc coating off of them. People would then coat the coins with mineral oil to try and keep the exposed steel from rusting.

You could also send rolls of steel cents in to companies that would reprocess them for you. For every 100 coins you sent in the company would return 50 to you and keep the other 50 for themselves as their "fee" for doing the work.

Ahhhh...."the good old days"!

Just another scam. Don't let yourself be caught.