You can see the copper through the coating on the reverse. Try a 1943 steel cent and compare the strength of attraction on your coin. Big difference.
In the older, innocent days, a favorite "science experiment" was to rub a shiny copper cent with mercury, turning it "silver" as the mercury combined (amalgamated) with the coin's surface. There are other ways to turn a penny "silver", but that was the easiest one. (No need to go into a mercury-fueled panic, BTW; such coins didn't pick up that much mercury, and it sticks pretty tightly. The coin won't kill your family.) I just went searching for a YouTube video of this process, but no luck -- the best I found was someone doing it with mercuric nitrate, which is a lot nastier than mercury metal. Maybe I should do one myself, for old times' sake. Let me just carefully crack open this old mercury switch, and... oops, BRB...
If it JUMPS to the magnet it's steel, if it just sticks to the magnet (and it is a fairly strong magnet) it is most likely a heavy nickel plating.
Not a US nickel. They're actually made from cupronickel, 75% copper and 25% nickel, and that alloy isn't magnetic. Some Canadian nickels (and other coins) were made from more pure nickel, and did stick to a magnet. Pure nickel plating will stick to a magnet, but since there isn't very much of it on the coin, there won't be a lot of force.
I cant find the coin. lol Im sorting through 6600 and I was reorganizing.... Its gotta be one of them. Let you know when I find it. For some reason all my error coins got mixed back in somewhere
I have a 1957 Philadelphia minted penny that looks silver, might be one of those mercuried pennies. I picked it up with a magnet, but am unsure that the content is steel.
Did you even read any of the responses on this thread? It is not steel. Most likely plated. Worth? 1 Cent