I have a 1943 p steel cent it weighs 3.0 on the scale is this overweight? or is this within tolerance?
Did you check the scale? Take any cent before 1982 and weigh it. It has a nominal weight of 3.11 . If the scale reads that correctly, then it eliminates one possible error area. if the scale only reads zero or one digit to the right of the decimal point, then it is rounding and won't be accurate.
so this leaves me with the original question, is this too far out of spec or do I discard back into the billions of cent ive gone through during the years
Personally, before you do that , I would recommend having someone with a more precise scale weigh it. Do you know any jeweler, science teacher, gold dealer, etc. that could weigh it. Since electronic scales generally round the last digit, I would do this before I either threw it away or pay to have an expert examine it. As a side note, you can look at the edge of the coin, and if it appears the same as the surfaces (obv) & (rev) in general than it has been replated. The edge was not zinc plated when issued, but when replated outside of the mint, they did the whole coin. Jim
Here is a 2 year old post from Condor 101 "There were two weight standards for the steel cent. The early ones were 2.689 grams, the ones later in the year were 2.754 grams. The tolerance range was .13 grams +/-. " So lets say this was a late year coin. 2.754+.13= 2.884 I don't think your coin being over by .116 of a gram is that big of a deal. It's interesting, but it's not worth much. Going off the picture it is steel and not copper.
and just to let you know it weighs 46 grains which equals 2.95 grams. which if you go by the standard 2.75-2.95 will equal .20 which is over the tolerance of +/- .13 by 7
