A Question Of Steel.

To CCF! All of them were and only made of steel for 1943.

There are tiny numbers of 1943 bronze and 1944 steel cents around. By "tiny numbers", I mean a couple dozen of each have been confirmed genuine. Whether these were "mint sports" (someone fooling around in the Mint after hours) or genuine "wrong planchet" mint errors (presumably from a planchet getting lost on the ground in the mint somewhere, then picked up a year later and tossed into the hopper) is impossible to be certain. There are also plenty of fake 1943 bronze cents out there, as these were mass-produced and mass-marketed.

For all practical purposes, the answer to both your questions is "yes".

to the Community!

to the CCF!

I've always assumed the 1943 steel replacement was more of a symbolic gesture rather than a practical source of copper savings. The government, during the war, was heavily messaging "save metal for the war effort" and didn't want to be seen wasting copper on what even back in 1943 was a somewhat frivolous denomination. And people getting given steel pennies in change where they were used to coppers would be a constant reminder that there was an existential war happening and everybody else needed to do their part too.

If the government thought that the message "don't worry, everything is normal" needed to be sent instead, I'm sure the 1943 pennies would have stayed bronze. Great Britain continued to issue bronze coins throughout the war, despite the cost, as part of their whole "keep calm and carry on" messaging for the harassed British populace.

1943 - D example: