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Information About the 1943 Penny

2011
12.12

1943 Penny

There are many people out there wondering exactly what the story is with the 1943 Penny. The reason why so many people wonder about this specific penny is because it looks a lot different than your average copper penny, so they immediately see this huge change and wonder whether or not their penny might be worth a lot more than the mere one cent face value. And this is obviously a very good question because of one thing. The 1943 Penny is actually silver in appearance as opposed to the usual look of the penny which is copper in appearance.

What most people don’t actually realize is that the 1943 Penny is not actually silver at all. When people find this out they are often shocked because it truly looks like it is made of silver and when you polish it up it shines just like silver would when that is polished too. This was intentionally done by the US government because this was right during World War II and they purposely held back on using copper and silver in all legal tender at this time because they were conserving these metals for the war effort. Copper was regularly used to make shell casings for bullets and silver had a whole bunch of uses as well that were very important to the war being fought in Europe and Japan at the time.

Do you want to know what substances the 1943 Penny is actually made of? I guess if you got this far into article then you find this topic somewhat interesting, so I’d rather not keep you hanging on any longer. Let me finally spill the beans to you. The 1943 silver colored penny is actually made of steel. And then they took that steel and coated it with zinc in order to give it that extra shine that makes it look like it’s silver.

But are these 1943 silver pennies actually worth anything? That is what most people truly want to know. And the answer is yes, they are worth more than face value. It’s also no at the same time because they aren’t worth millions of dollars like I know a lot of people are hoping. A circulated 1943 silver colored penny is roughly worth about $.12-$.15. If you have an uncirculated silver penny from 1943 it could be worth as much as $.50. So don’t just discard your 1943 Penny made of silver because it has a little extra value that you can capitalize on.

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What Is The History Behind The 1943 Silver Penny?

2012
01.02

1943 Silver Penny

People are often looking for more information about the 1943 silver penny. The reason they do this is that your average and everyday penny is obviously not silver, so one would think that owning a silver penny would be a very rare thing and that it might be worth a lot more money than it originally appears to possess in value. While this is definitely the right way to think, I have to inform you that the 1943 silver penny really isn’t worth all that much money, and the honest truth is that this penny is not even actually made of silver. It is made of steel and then it is coated with zinc to give it that added sparkle and shine.

As I’m sure you have already realized, during 1943 the world was at war and we were overseas fighting in World War II. So there were plenty of resources being diverted to the war effort so that the Allies could hold their ground and push back the enemy. Thankfully these resources were diverted because they were much-needed and they helped America and the allied nations win the war against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

Two of the major resources that our country diverted to the war effort were both copper and silver. But copper played a very big role because it was used in the creation of all of the ammunition being used to fight the war. So they obviously could not continue to mint pennies with copper because it had a bunch bigger role to play during American history at the time. And if you look at the size of the penny when you compare it to the dime, you would realize that minting pennies with silver just wouldn’t work right. To have a true 1943 silver penny, the actual value of that penny would be more like $.15 since it is a little bit bigger than a dime. In this case size does matter, and the US mint didn’t want to lose money for every penny that they minted.

There were a lot of problems causes by minting the 1943 silver penny that nobody anticipated at all. One of the major problems was that people kept mistaking this particular style of penny for a dime. It also caused problems with the vending machines because the machines recognize the value of the penny as being worth more than it really was so people got away with some items for a cheaper price than they would normally pay.

Thanks for taking the time to read about the 1943 silver penny.

Tags: Category 1943 Penny, 1943 Silver Penny |