Have these been reprocessed? (1943 D Lincoln Steel Wheat Cents)

I have 42 of the 1943 D and 21 of the 1943 Steel Pennies. They appear to be reprocessed due to the blue/green/purple hues on the coins, the scans may not pick it up very well. The brilliance of the coins and strange color is suspect to me. I have a very nice 1943 D in my folder (which I know has not been reprocessed) that is more of a matte/satin finish and not semi-gloss like these. I just wanted the community's opinion to confirm or discount my assumption. TIA!

JP

 

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^^^^^ That's what I expected...

 

I am not sure if they have been reprocessed or not. Treated with some type of chemical ~possible.

The very best way to tell is to look at the outer edge of the coin. The steel cents were punched from zinc plated steel, so the edge should show a center steel core and zinc outer layer ( which may be a little smeared due to the punching).

When coins are reprocessed, the procedure plates the entire edge with the zinc layer, so no steel core is visible.

If you can't tell , take some photos of the edges, but they need to be close ups, and you probably can tell with a magnifier a lot better.

Welcome to the forum!
Jim

 

Thanks for the welcome Jim. No steel core is visible unfortunately. The edges look very uniform in color identical to the obverse and reverse of the coins. Oh well, I found the coins when I was cleaning up the house last year and don't remember where I got them originally. Thanks for the help folks!

JP

 

Here are two pix of a reprocessed steel cent. They look a little different because of different lighting used (ordinary overhead halogen for one, which reflected a lot of pinpoint light; and a ring light for the other, which diffused things). The third pic is a real steelie.

Jim's suggestion about looking at the edge is a good one. You can also see the significant difference in surface appearance.
Lance.