Thread: 1959 white penny

I have a bunch of old coins and with the old pennys i found a 1959 penny. Instead of the usual copper color it is silver. I going to attach some pictures. Anybody know if it is worth anything?

Howdy JMazzella - Welcome to the Forum !!

I'm afraid the pics are way to small to able to help you any. Can you enlarge them ?

Thanks Im glad to find the forum. My father had a whole bunch of old coins but I was trying to look this up and can't find anything like it. Im rescanning it now and i will try to enlarge it. but i can tell you it silver colored instead of copper.

OK - while you're working on the pics - here's another little test you can do that may help identify the coin or tell what has happened to it.

Find a popsicle stick and place it across a pencil so that the popsicle stick is balanced. Now find another cent - it has to be dated before 1982. Place this white cent on one end of the popsicle stick and the other cent on the other end. Which one is heavier ?

Originally Posted by JMazzella

I have a bunch of old coins and with the old pennys i found a 1959 penny. Instead of the usual copper color it is silver. I going to attach some pictures. Anybody know if it is worth anything?

Your cent appears to be of its full diamater. Since 1959 cents were made of copper, not copper coated zinc, your cent was most likely plated with something, hence post Mint alteration.

silver plated it could be, but also with the help of an enlarged photo will greatly help us distinguish it.

Originally Posted by JMazzella

I have a bunch of old coins and with the old pennys i found a 1959 penny. Instead of the usual copper color it is silver. I going to attach some pictures. Anybody know if it is worth anything?

I also have a 1959 "silver" penny that was in my fathers collection.

Originally Posted by Lonthu

I also have a 1959 "silver" penny that was in my fathers collection.

Upon further examination, this penny is definitely post mint plated. Front and back are silver but the rim is not, it is copper, except that there is a very slight "bead" of silver at the very top of the coin rim; as might be expected if it were attached to a chain or other support. I suspect that this penny was part of a pendant or a bracelet (I saw a 1959 silver penny bracelet advertised on epier http://www.epier.com/BiddingForm.asp?232830 ).

Let us talk about the white penny please. After looking at it thinking it was struck in the wrong metal. Which can a does happen, I found that they are magnetic. They have the same grab to a magnet that a 1943 penny has. I would say that this is not a post mint thing becase they are only found on 1959 pennies that do not have a mint letter. Possible testing pieces or wrong metal mixture. I am trying to research these pennies but hopefully there is something about them.

Lonthu:
Welcome.
death52502:
Welcome.

As afr as the above, if it were struck on a dime planchet, which is the only thing possible, it would not fill all the devices that clearly, since the planchet is smaller.

Coating cents with Mercury was fairly popular back in the 50's and 60's! It made them bright and shiny and awfully purdy (to some folks that is!)!


Frank

here is a 1954 cent, plated with something or other. The thin coat of metal was enough to make it stick to this magnetic bracelet

Death52502
Your post seems to imply that you also own a "white" 1959 cent that is strongly attracted to a magnet. Now 99.99% of all of the "white" cents that are reported turn out to be merely a plated cent. If the plating is a heavy one of nickel or chrome it can be weakly attracted to a magnet but not strongly attracted. Most of the coins that are NOT just plated are cents struck on dime planchets. These are lighter in weight and are also not magnetic.

Very rarely you will find a cent that is struck on a foreign planchet. (The Mint struck coins or made planchets for foreign countries until 1984, and for Iceland in 2000) If this is the case then it will probably also be light weight. It is possible to go over a list of possible coins/planchets if we know the weight. Still something like that is just a random occurance not something special to 1959. And it would not be an experimental alloy test as the mint had no reason to conduct such experiments in 1959.

I have this same penny. 1959 no mint mark. Just weighed it today. Its 3.5 grams. And magnetic. If you guys have found any info id appreciate it. Hope it helps.

The cent weight is given for 95% copper is 3.11 grams, steel 1943 was 2.7 grams, zinc core 2.5, all +/- max of about .1gram

The dime weight ( 90% silver) is 2.50 grams and clad dimes 2.27 grams

A cent weighing 3.5 grams and being magnetic has to be plated with steel or other magnetic composition.