The 1943 SILVER cents revisited

[RalphB]

If you have been involved in coin collecting for a number of years, no doubt, even to non-collectors, many still remember the highly publicized searching back in the 50s and 60s for mint error cents struck unintentionally on bronze (copper) blanks instead of the steel blanks used in 1943 to save copper for the war effort. But more serious collectors realized early on that there was more to the story.

During BOTH years, 1943 and 1944, there were transitions from the bronze cent blanks used in 1942 to the steel blanks used in 1943, and back again to bronze blanks in 1944. So you can start to see where all the confusion began.

When the mints transitioned from 1942 to 1943, all of the bronze blanks were supposed to be replaced with ONLY steel blanks, but somehow a few (very few) of the earlier bronze blanks got stuck in the blanking hoppers and were ran through the cent minting process with the steel blanks, producing the 1943 bronze cents that so many millions of people have been searching for since the 1940s. But then, when the mints resumed striking bronze cents in 1944, just the opposite occurred when some of the earlier steel blanks got left behind in the hoppers and were struck along side the 1944 bronze cents. Confused yet ?

An avid coin collector from New York by the name of John Whitney took an interest to this hodge-podge and decided at some time to form a referrence collection of the off-metal error strikings of the bronze and steel cents, but he then discovered there was more to the story when it was found that there were actually a very few SILVER cents out there too, most specifically those that were struck in 1943 on blanks intended to be used only for striking silver dimes. While the whole country was thinking of all the publicity being heaped on the error bronze cents made and dated in 1943, the silver cents, which were just as unusual and rare, remained largely unknown because of the bronze errors. Admittedly, with the millions of steel cents in circulation at the time, a silver cent would have been much harder to find or recognize because of the similarity in the colors of the two metals. The silver cents circulating with the steel cents were probably never suspected or as conspicous as the differently colored bronze coins.

So how serious is your collecting habit ?

In 2010, the single known specimen of the 1943 Denver Mint bronze cent sold for 1.7 MILLION DOLLARS. The link below takes you to an excellent history of some of the prices realized for different wrong metal 1943 and 1944 cents:

https://www.greysheet.com/news/story/th ... spans-time

More about collector John Whitney's collection.

At one time John Whitney was of the opinion that there were probably a total of 15 to 20 of the 1943 bronze planchet cents combined for all 3 mints. That number seems to still hold true. Several of them are submissions to third-party-grading, with re, re, re, and more resubmissions down the line, sometimes making the population numbers seem inflated beyond reality. He thought there was one, maybe two uncirculated bronze pieces, and in fact some of those are graded and certified as AU58 which equals a borderline uncirculated grade, and perhaps even fewer of the silver dime strikes, and the vast majority of those I have seen were VERY well worn or damaged. After all, the similarty to the colors of the steel and silver coins would have been much less conspicous than bronze vs. steel, which would suggest there were perhaps just fewer of the silver cents ever found to begin with. His MS63 (1943-S struck on a silver dime blank) was actually the very first of the off-metal silver 1943 cents that was graded by NGC. John had two of the 1943-S on silver dime pieces, one graded AU55 and his MS63. Of his 1943-44 off-metal steel, bronze and silver cents collection, he said he bought the first piece of his 8 piece collection "sometime after 1980", so there is a reference to the real rarity involved, even back then.

Following is the group population of the 8 coins in the Whitney reference collection:

1943-P bronze cent graded AU58 brown
1943-S bronze cent graded AU58 Brown
1944-P steel cent graded AU58
1944-P steel cent graded MS63
1944-D steel cent graded MS62
1944-S steel cent graded XF40
1943-S silver cent graded AU55
1943-S silver cent graded MS63 * See
photo.

(PHOTO: 1943-S cent struck on a silver dime blank MS63. Formerly from the John Whitney collection *. Originally certified by NGC, now in a PCGS slab. Graded by both services as MS-63).

[Paul]

Welcome

[JTCC]

intresting. thanks for posting.

[Daniel]

I actually did a video on someone who discovered one who's a member of my Facebook group.