I received a 1978 US Penny in change yesterday. It is totally silver in color, but seems to weigh the same as a normal penny. It seems to have been made with the wrong planchet. Any thoughts on if this is a true mint error? Worth?
More than likely it had been electroplated with some silver colored metal. I'd bet my collection there be copper under that silver.
There is a common high school chem lab experiment about electroplating that uses cents as test materials. I used to post the website instructions, but unfortunately they have been taken down and my link doesn't work any longer.