I had a 1943 penny which looked like all the other old pennies I have - dark brown. It has gone missing but I need to know that the steel pennies can look like copper pennies of that time. If it is gone for good I'd like to believe it was not copper. I had only saved it because I'd heard that year pennies were made of steel and thought it was interesting. I had examined it, there was no silvery color to it and I did not attempt to clean it.
Chances of your coin be an authentic '43 Copper are slim. There are various methods used to alter the color of '43 Steel cents to make them appear to the naked eye as if they are copper-composed. I won't get into the specifics simply because I don't remember all of them, but the best way to verify the authenticity of your coin is to weigh it (closest to 1/10th of a gram as you can get). Another possibilty is that your coin was dug-up by a metal detector, and that the coin simply developed rust from decades of exposure to natural elements. I've seen these far too many times mistaken by those unexperienced as a 1943 Copper Wheat Cent. -Brian
Yes they aer magnetic, and yes they can be brown. The steel underneath the zinc can rust and give the coin a rusted brown color.
