Hello everyone! This is my first posting in the CoinTalk forums. May I say everyone in these forums is quite knowledgable & whitty at the same time. I wish I had something more spectacular to show you on my first posting. Perhaps I do but that is where I need members opinions. I discovered this 1968 D Lincoln Penny last week while searching through a box of pennies I purchased at my bank. It has all the minting of a Lincoln penny but the outer edge looks more like a nickel. It weighs exactly 3.0 grams & is not magnetic. I took it to a local coin shop hoping they would be able to tell me the metal composition. Unfortunately they could not. The store owner looked at it and replied, "Looks like just a penny to me." So now before I venture anywhere else I would like the opinion of the members here. Perhaps someone in the past chemically altered this coin? Maybe it is one of the zinc coated pennies I have read about? I'm totally open to opinions & suggestions.
Sorry, but it appears as if your coin was plated after it left the mint. This was a common science experiment performed in High School Chemistry classes. Cheap easy way to teach kids plus they got to take the experiment home. So a lot of these ended up being spent. Yours looks like it's seen some circulation after plating. Unfortunately, these are considered Post Mint Damage (PMD) and are only worth face value Want to try it yourself? https://www.sciencecompany.com/Turn-Copper-Pennies-Into-Silver-and-Gold-Pennies.aspx
Can you tell us why you think it is worth more than one cent? Also, you should put this in its own thread.
at least one cent. yours is "nice" for being 50 years old but still has a lot of circulation wear, strikes and scratches. In a really, really good condition (which yours is not) they're not worth much anyways. (from usacoinbook.com ) as they made 2.8 BILLION of them.