It just doesn't look right to me, what do you think? I'm thinking it could be a counterfeit made by Mark Hofmann
Who is Mark Hofmann? I have found one obverse die for the 1943-D Copper, three Obverse dies for the 1943-S Copper, two obverse dies for the 1944-D Steel and one obverse die for the 1944-S steel. The OP's coin doesn't match.
Mark Hoffman is a well known counterfeiter who went to prison in the late 80's. These CAD renderings are super helpful, thank you
Looks like someone scratched the obverse too see if they find steel underneath. I have no opinion on this coin other that it doesn't look right.
Easy way to solve this mystery. Have a magnet handy? If it sticks to the magnet, it's steel. If not, it's copper. Another way is to grab a small scale. Copper pennies weigh 3.1g. Steel pennies weigh 2.7g.
Definitely fake. I too wondered who Mark Hoffman was. As usual, Wikipedia came to my rescue. Once I read skimmed the article, I do remember reading a little about him, but he was a document forger. You think he did coins? (Did he?) On what information do you base your suspicion that he was the creator of the coin here? If that provenance could be proven, you'd still have an interesting collectible here, even if it's not a genuine 1943 copper cent (which of course it is not).
PS- I will add that while the obverse might have fooled me, that reverse has a real "Made in China" look to it, especially the softness of the letters and weak stalks.
Yes. He is considered the creator of the 1959 Cent with a wheat reverse and not memorial. Only specimen in existance. https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/coins/sg090206-coins.htm
Aha! OK. Interesting! I'd love to hear how this coin here (might) be attributable to him. That would be pretty cool.
Couldn't Hoffman have melted a real copper cent and made an obverse and reverse wheat die from it, thereby making it metallicly kosher? I mean, the guy clearly had that kind of talent and research to fake those other documents and coins. LeRoy Henning used the same metallic formula for his nickels as the supplier was the same as for the Mint, and the government even melted the few fakes they recovered from him to make real ones. With the variances allowed for weight, it is possible quite a few people have fakes and don't even know it.
The color alone is suspect. You can also weigh it as the steelies weigh differently (copper 3.11 grams vs. steelies at 2.7 grams) I agree someone probably marked it up to look for the zinc coating underneath, though it wasn't a smart way to go about it. Someone brought me a 1944 steel cent to check that was found at an estate sale...and he actually used a table saw to nick it to check it himself! You could see the copper core, but imagine if it were genuine? The things people do to self-verify a potentially valuable item is limitless in its absurdity.
I think it was a dealer who knew it was a fake and decided to make it obvious, but the use of liquid darkener to make it look aged was a bad step. Makes it look like one of those medals from a commercial coin or medal sets in a presentation.
Again, why would this matter? If such coins were not intentionally made and were in fact a random occurrence, there's absolutely no reason to assume your tracing technique would be of any use in identifying or attributing other examples.
Mark Hoffman did make counterfeit coins, but he is much better known as a forger of documents, mainly documents relating to the early Mormon church. He also counterfeited Mormon coins. When some people started becoming suspicious of his Mormon documents, he decided to eliminate those people and killed several using bombs in their mailboxes. He's not doing anymore counterfeiting now as he is serving life in prison. The gentleman who wrote the book Numismatic Forgery, Charles Larson, was I believe a prison guard in the cellblock that Hoffman is in. And many of the techniques in the book for creating forgeries supposedly came from Mark Hoffman.
