1944 steel penny

There is an image of the front there already

 

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He stated for me to send it in to get authenticated

 

Any advice or opinions from anyone would be greatly appreciated

 

Your next step is to weigh the coin. I'm thinking it's plated but knowing the exact weight is important.

 

Do you know what it is supposed to weigh?

 

It was posted.

 

If you get a chance, put it on a piece of just white paper, the wood pattern tends to color photos. It does appear to be plated by the tone ( see above) . but the weight will be the starting factor for consideration by any authentication process, then an XRF which measure the exact # of elements in the coin. Jim

 

Sorry, but it looks plated. Weigh it using Jim's instructions in post #3. There are multitudes of plated coins for every authentic example

 

Just from visual, it doesn't look like a steel planchet.The color is wrong. It appears plated. Perhaps your dealers super magnet was attracted to the magnetic components in the plating. Let's see the weight.

 

See what the coin dealer will offer you.

 

I also found a silver 1944 steel penny while coin roll hunting, however it is corroded. You can still make out the date. I have not weighed it yet, but would it be worth anything in it's current condition or do you somehow clean it?

 

It looks like a normal corroded cent to me. I don't think there is a good way to clean the coin.

 

All I see is copper. How can you make out the date?
Is there too much verdigris, for Verdicare? Either way it would cost too much
too restore something that is only worth a penny. But it might be a good subject
for the experiment. It appears as if it has been cleaned before and some of it
cleaned and the rest was too funky.

 

That's not a steel cent.

 

By appearances, this looks like a plated 1944 cent. Weighing it will go a long way to verifying that it is a fake. A copper cent with plating will be 3.1+ grams with plating. If you are around 2.8 grams...then authentication services are needed.

If you don't have a scale, you can create a simple weighing device to see where your coin leans. Using a AA battery, a piece of tape, and a popsicle stick you can create a sea-saw scale using two known coins of the same material. Find the center of balance and use one copper cent to be your control. Place it on one end, your coin on the other. If it's copper/plated, it should tilt your scale towards your subject coin's end, or remain about even. If the control end goes down, then your specimen is lighter than 3.1 grams. Next, use a Zincoln as your control and repeat the experiment. If the subject coin is heavier, then you are between 2.5 and 3.1 grams. I might start feeling some excitement at that time and would make a formal assessment a higher priority.

 

I've got a bunch of 43' steel pennies that are in the same shape as this one. And they all show some type of surface rust and/or tarnished. Interesting that this one that has obviously been in circulation shows no surface rust or tarnished.

For this reason, I'm in the group of those that speculate it's been plated. It actually looks like it's been spray painted with a metallic rattle can type of paint. Just my opinion though. If it's a real genuine 1944 steel penny, it would be worth quite a bit. Good luck.



How to make copper pennies look like they are made of silver/steel:

 

That Pawn Shop coin sold for $30,550.00. Visit Heritage Auctions.

 

Yeah, I saw that. The pawn shop guy and the professional coin collector were right on the money with the appraisal.