What do you guys think is rarer, an Indian head Penny or a 1943 steel penny?

Just wanted to know because i have a steel penny. I would say the steel cent because they where only made in 1943. Unlike the Indian head pennies, as they where made from 1859 to 1909.

 

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Neither one is particularly rare.

 

If you want five thousand of each this week, you can probably manage it from existing stock in varying sales outlets.

 

Correct.. but do you know that a few 1944 Steel Cents were made also?
If you find one it worth thousands!
I want to share this webpage with you - http://cointrackers.com/coins/13593/1944-steel-wheat-penny/

 

At coin shows I sometimes see booths with jars overflowing with steel cents labeled "steel cents - 25 cents each." People hoarded this issue at the time so boatloads upon boatloads of really nice examples still exist. To take a personal example, I inherited quite a few coins from my grandparents after they passed away. Every single hoard had multiple steel cents in them. Consequently, I have a few dozen examples. They definitely have appeal, but they have very little value.

As for Indian Head pennies, many of them, if not all of them, are worth quite a bit more than a steel cent, especially when in great condition. So your question depends highly on the condition of the Indian Head cent and its year.

 

I originally put the steel cent but then realized that I misread the prompt in the survey. Coin Facts claims there's about 100 million 1943 cents (P, D, and S). I don't know how accurate this is, but I believe there's at least some merit to this number, which I think is probably a lot higher than the number of Indian head cents still in existence. The Indian heads had an extra 35+ to get lost/destroyed/etc. so I think they should be rarer. I could be wrong though.

 

The steel cent is more common to find in pocket change because they tend to darken and get overlooked. Both are common as far as buying them as a collectible, especially in problem or low grades. An Indian is more rare in unc grades, which explains why prices are higher for these in comparison.

 

neither

 

While neither are particularly rare, the Indian head cent does get more difficult to find in the higher grades and there are a few key dates. But with the Steel cent like they said above were hoarded because they were new and different.

 

Either can be rare in top pop. Neither are rare in lower grades except a few Indians are scarce or tough to find in any cond. It all depends on the indiv. coin.

 

The steel cent is rarer. They made 1,039,900,000 steel cents and 1,705,900,000 indian head cents.

In either case that is enough for every man, woman, and child in the US to have several of each of them.

 

You're comparing a one year type Lincoln against a series that spread across 50 years. Of course there were more Indian's minted. But calling either rare is a gross overstatement.

There were over 1 Billion 1943 steel cents minted among the three mints. Even though each year's production was a fraction of the steel cent mintage the accumulated total of the Indian head cent was 1.6 Billion.

Sorry if this is redundant. Conder101 was posting as I was still in writing mode.

 

Thanks for all the nice feedback guys! Thanks for the info aswell.

 

This would be better in the CRH forum.

 

Neither is rare, but technically the Steel cent was rarer, it was minted for 1 year, 2 if you count the 1944 error, and about 1 billion were minted, Indian head cents were minted for half a century, about 2 billion-ish Indian heads were minted.

 

Neither. I found a 1943 steel cent (the US Mint never made a penny) in a Coinstar yesterday and I can pick up IHCs from my dealer for .50 all day long.

 

I received my 2016 mint set coins today... guess what the mint calls the cent? A penny!

 

Interesting.. can you show a picture?

 

Pictures are not working right now... on the cert of authenticity, their notation is penny, nickel, dime...etc.

 

Why am I not surprised?