Hello everyone! I am a new collector, and I am trying to gather as much information about coins as I can from more experienced collectors. ------------------------------ I found some very interesting coins today. They are pennies (apparently from World War 2) that appear to be made out of steel. Why were these pennies made out of steel during this time? Was it because of the rationing of everyday supplies during this time? Was it cheaper to make the coins out of steel at the time? (The coins pictures are from the San Francisco, Philidelphia, and Denver mints.)
You need to get yourself a Red Book. Long story short, they needed the copper for WWII so they made these out of zinc plated steel.
They didn't work very well with vending machines at the time. But yeah you should get yourself a red book. You can also find some good information at coins.about.com or pcgs coinfacts.
I have doubts about the vending machine stories in all of the history coin blogs. I have seen many of that era's vending machines, and the only ones taking cents I recall were candy corn and gumball size candies. Sodas, and cigarette machines, etc. were usually nickels on up. Slugs ( usually from various punch-outs were used to imitate nickels and that is where the magnet came to reject). The cent machines usually used a rotating device using the size of the cent rather than the composition. But there are some older members on the forum that may remember the machines better. I still recall going past the 'Buster Brown Shoes' store and putting my feet in the x-ray machine so parents could see that we needed larger shoes. Just there on the sidewalk and of course we did every time we walked by I wonder how many rads it put out through the tin device . Now kids just use cell phones next to their brain
