I have seen a few posts regarding the silver 1978 and 1978-D cent. I found one in my change, years back. In fact, I think it had been mistaken for a dime. The weight on the coin is the normal 3.1 grams, which rules out the possibility of it being a rare aluminum cent, like the experimental issues from 1974. I am curious what people may know about this coin. If the copper plating had been omitted, I suspect that it would weigh approximately 5% less than the other, regular issued coins from 1978. I wonder if it may have been a joke by someone who lightly plated a bunch of 1978 cents, although I would suspect that would also increase the weight. (I know very little about electroplating, so it may be possible that the process may not have increased the weight more than 0.04 grams.....let me know if thats realistic). I have seen posts mainly about the 1978-P silver cent, but also a couple about the 1978-D silver cent. I see no evidence that the coin has been plated, but I do not want to scratch it up to find out for sure. I also do not know where to start testing the metal to see if its silver, lead, mercury, etc. Anyway, let me know what you think. Thanks
Pictures? Third party companies today still and in the past would plate coins and resell to the public. Sooner or later they make it into circulation. The plating is so thin that it generally adds very little discernable weight.
The weight also eliminates it being on a dime planchet. If it has full cent rims, it can't have been minted from a dime planchet. The aluminum cents were only dated 1974 and you aren't getting one of those. (See other threads on that.) Without seeing photos it's about 100% that it was plated. There are no modern silver cents.
As mentioned above, plating adds no weight that an average scale can detect. If the cents weigh 3 to 3.2 grams on any scale, they're simply plated copper cents.
