What a dynamic hobby – I am always learning something new. I wasn’t until recently I learned 1943 bronze cents were struck at all 3 branch mints. The same is true for the 1944 steel cent. I know my chances for winning the lottery is probably better than finding one of these coins. Then I got to thinking, perhaps the odds of finding a 1943 bronze cent struck on a steel planchet or a 1944 steel cent struck on a bronze might be somewhere in the realm of possible. Certainly these dies went on to produce a normal amount of coinage struck on a proper planchet. I have never seen any of the coins in person and probably never will. Means I must resort to studying images of known examples. Well here is what I learned today. The 1943-S Bronze cent was struck by two different obverse dies. The 1944-D steel cent was also. Following are some CAD overlays illustrating the date and mint mark position for the dies that struck the 1943 Bronze and 1944 steel cents.
There aren't any bronze cents struck on a steel planchet. There are bronze cents that are supposed to be steel. And they are struck on a bronze planchet. 1943 And there are steel cents that are supposed to be bronze and are struck on a steel planchet. 1944 Once the steel planchet is struck it is a steel cent. Once the copper planchet is struck it is a copper cent.
I am not going to argue the above point because that is correct. But I have to ask - Did you read my entire post? The following statement was included. "Certainly these dies went on to produce a normal amount of coinage struck on a proper planchet." What I was referring to is searchung for coinage struck on the proper planchet whose dies were used to strike the 1943 Bronze and 1944 steel cents.
An online source I use says there are 20 Philly 1943's 5 San Fran and 1 Denver. Same source shows: 30 Philly 1944 steel, 7 Denver and 2 San Fran. Probably easier to try to match the Philly coins since they most likely used different dies and so there will be more matches. But if one die pair made 200,000 coins, and the 1943 Philly minted almost 685 million, you may need 150 coins to find a match. (150x20=3000x 200,000= 600M) Plus you would need good photos of all the 20 Philly bronze 1943's.
If memory serves me (and to be fair it often doesn't) the best legitimate explanation for the existence of such coins is leftover planchets, meaning that expecting to match the dies used for known examples may be somewhat of an exercise in futility, mostly for the reasons Michael stated above. Still, what appears to be your stated goal of finding a normal issue (43 steel or 44 bronze) produced from the same die as a known 43 bronze or 44 steel is certainly achievable if willing to put in the time and effort. I very much like your approach and congratulate you for your efforts.
OP, you stated your chances of winning the lottery are probably better than finding one of these coins-they are!!
I think the odds are in favor of the coins versus the lottery. Any of us who have been looking long enough have made more than what we paid for any coins we found. Can't say the same for any scratcher. I'll take those odds any day!
My odds of finding a Bronze 1943 or 1944 Steel are about equal to winning the lottery. My odds of finding an example struck on a proper planchet is about the same as finding any other other variety cent struck (RPM/Doubled Die) during the era. Granted the searching process will be more difficult due to the fact when searching for variety coins- properly struck coins can be easily and quickly eliminated from your search. The opposite holds true when searching for one these coins. Although when searching for the 1944-S all ball serif mint marked coins can be quickly eliminated. I haven't created any grids of the mint mark positions yet which might allow me to quickly eliminate a significant number of other coins from my search. I wonder if I were to find one - if a TPG would certify it? And if so what do you think its value would be? Any premium?
Not sure about the certification. But you will need many different photos of verified 1943 copper cents, to get the different die markers.
If the bronze planchets were stuck in equipment and/or tote bins it would not be expected that all of them would go through the same press. In fact it would be highly likely that they would NOT go through the same press and be struck by the same dies. So there would be a very good chance that almost every bronze 43 cent was struck from a different die pair.
Not really. If you assume roughly a half million or so coins from a die, you best chance would be from San Francisco. Roughly 382 or so dies but at least three of them struck a brass cent, so roughly a 1 in 127 chance. Get together a good random mix of a few hundred 1943 S steel cents and chances are pretty good that one of them will be from the same die that struck a 1943 S brass cent.
