I found this penny this morning... I had learned that 1943 copper pennies are rare because they minted stainless steel pennies in order to save copper for war efforts, but this is clearly a 1942 penny that is a silver colored metal. It looks like it has some copper at the edges and a little on Lincoln's face. But why would anyone stainless steel coat this penny or if it's mostly SS, why would someone copperplate it? Magnets do stick to it. It also doesn't have a mint mark... can anyone tell me what's going on here?
to CCF. no mint mark means it was minted in Philadelphia. 1943 cents were minted with zinc plated steel cores,not stainless steel. Your coin looks to be plated,probably with nickel. What does your coin weigh? John1
I'm not sure on it's weight. And the only scale I have is a food scale. I don't know how precise it needs to be. Why would someone go through the trouble of nickel plating a 1942 penny? That's curious. And how do they do this and maintain the look of the penny?
Nickel plating coins of any year is quite common. There are probably dozens of posts on here of people asking the same question. Sometimes it was done as a school experiment and other times it was plated to make it into some form of jewelry.
@wbu, first welcome to CCF. Second, I agree that your cent has been plated after it left the mint. It can be such a thin surface coating that the details are generally preserved well. As far as your question:
Quote: And how do they do this and maintain the look of the penny?
There are lots of demos on youtube. Here is one random one:
JOeJpoVqBMQ
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to CCF. 
Posted 04/14/2019 09:51 am
