Can anyone tell me why cents turn red sometimes or and anything else interesting about them? I found this as a kid and thought it was cool and kept it. Now I am actually collecting and came across it while going through boxes. Thanks! I tried to get the best picture I could but it doesn't show up as red as it is.
Unfortunately, the reason is exposure to environmental chemicals at best, and deliberate destructive experimentation at worst.
Also.. Do you understand the name used for different colors of Cents? Red - Brand new freshly minted Red Brown - Circulated with Environmental Toning Brown - Dark colors due to aging and circulation
Your Cent actually falls into the Brown category. Some people paint Cents Red for some crazy reason but that would be Post Mint Damage.
FACTOID: Back at the time Kennedy was elected president some quarters got painted with a red skull cap on Washington. Resulted in a close resemblance to the Pope.
Collectors call this "toning" when they like it, "corrosion" or "damage" when they don't. Copper combines with oxygen from the air to form copper oxides. There are two kinds of copper oxide. Cuprous oxide has two atoms of copper combined with one atom of oxygen; it's red, or sometimes yellow. Cupric oxide has one atom of copper for each atom of oxygen; it's black. Depending on what the cent gets exposed to over time -- temperature, moisture, light, and so on -- it can form both kinds of oxide. This means it can turn red (like yours), brown, or black. Copper reacts with other chemicals, too, so it can also turn green or blue, but that's usually corrosion -- it makes a powdery or slimy deposit that wipes off, and eventually leaves pits or holes in the coin. Finally, if you get a very thin layer of copper oxide or copper sulfide, it can create a rainbow of colors. This is the kind of "toning" that some collectors like, and they'll pay extra for it (but only if they're convinced it happened "naturally", instead of being produced on purpose, "artificially"). That's me pretending to be a chemist/metallurgist again. There are real chemists and metallurgists here who can tell you a lot more if you want.
