We have seen many of these here on CoinTalk with the same question.. It is a normal Copper Cent which has been Plated. The plating was done after it left the US Mint.
Sometime you can see the telltale signs of a wire wrapped around the edge of a coin so it could be dip plated. I have an 1981-S that show it.
@alurid @paddyman98 I have a 1910 plated penny. I have been trying to figure out how it was plated. I don't see any copper showing. It weighs 3.11. What other methods were used to plate coins other than electroplating?
The plating can be super thin won't add much weight. As for the OP there are no silver pennies. In 1943 they made them out of steel (zinc coated) because they needed the copper for the war effort. And in 1944 about 39 or so were found on leftover steel blanks. Pennies from later dates that look silver, are always plated. Here is a gold plated one I found:
Could be spray. The plating is very thin and was, apparently, plated when the coin was very young. I'm guessing EF-45. I can't get a real good photo with my set up. But, the fields are very shinny, almost mirror like.
Wasn't US Mint experimenting with new designs in the 80's? Maybe it's an experimental zinc planchet. Could be worth 10s of 1000s. Nevermind, was looking at different coin
I'm neither buying it or selling it. I found it in circulation back in about 1950. It is here to get some comments on how it could have been plated. Yes, it is worth $.01.
