1928 Silver Colored Wheat Penny?

I found this coin in a storage container with some steel pennies. It obviously stood out because of its brighter sheen. From what I can tell, there was never a silver colored wheat penny produced on purpose in 1928. I am not sure if its composition. I thought silver, but I had a jeweler examine it and they did not believe it to be silver. It does have some scratches on it. Possibly from being stored with the harder steel pennies? Does anyone know what I have here? Is it an actual purpose production that I am just not aware of?

 

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Your 1928 Cent has been Plated.
It is a Copper Cent with some plating on it done after it left the US Mint.

The jeweler really could not tell that it was plated? Unbelievable.

 

I knew that there were some plated coins out there and that is one reason why I took it to a jeweler for examination. Is there a way I could determine if it was plated or not without damaging the coin?

 

I was thinking the same.

 

It is already considered damaged.
A normal Cent will weigh in at 3.11 grams. If you find a gram scale and weigh your Cent it will be slightly heavier. But no need to do this because it is definitely plated.

 

Since it's already damaged in a number of ways, you're not going to hurt anything by doing a little more, especially if it makes you feel better. If no "copper" shows anywhere on the coin (look closely), simply find an inconspicuous area and dig in.

 

Well I reluctantly put my cent on a gram scale, wouldn’t you know it... 3.2 grams. Nothing like thinking you have a one of a kind and finding out it would have been worth more if someone would have just left it alone. Oh well I guess I will just re-examine my 55’s for evidence of a double die.

 

Can we just make this whole thread a "keyboard shortcut" that automatically populates the thread the next time someone reports a "silver penny" or "steel penny"? Is not plating the immediate "go to" answer? Or replating for MOST 1943 cents.

 

Plated. Damaged. And not worth doing anything to it.

 

Mwuh, mwuh, mwuhhhhhhh.

 

It's past your bedtime Kurt.

 

Sooner than most would think, yes. My brain is presently on Bermuda Time.

 

To bad your not. The warmth of Bermuda sounds good to me. PA is just too cold for this time of year.

 

Well normally that coin may be around $1- $3. But there are scratches that look like they were there before the plating. So this was a damaged coin, but now it's down to a nickel (max). But it's 100% that it was worth more before the plating. They should have used a 1928 which is a common date. The 28-D is a much lower mintage.

 

Where do you get that the jeweler couldn't tell it was plated. All the OP said was the jeweler said it wasn't silver.

 

What I meant was that the jeweler said it wasn't silver but couldn't tell the OP that it was just plated.. So now we are wasting our precious time answering this thread!

 

@Conder101
Ok here is the scenario -

"Hello Mr. Jeweler.. I have this strange coin that looks like silver. Can you help me?"

"Ok. Let me take a look."

A few moments later...

"Sorry but this Cent is not made of silver and it looks to be plated"

"Are you sure Mr. Jeweler?"

"Yes! Get it out of my shop!"

"Oh well.. I guess I will post it in CoinTalk and ask wveryone if it could be silver or not"

Now, I am assuming that the OP was told that it was plated. Maybe they didn't. But the OP said that the jeweler said it wasn't silver.

Peace

 

Yes, but that is all he said.

Conversation could have gone just as you postulated but the jewelers replay could just as easily have been.

"Sorry but this Cent is not made of silver." with no mention of plating. As they might say in court "facts assumed that were not placed in evidence."

 

I plead the fifth then!

 

Here's the "universal takeaway" and THE answer.

1) EVERYBODY in this hobby has heard, "I have a silver penny at home".

2) The answer is "no, you don't."