A 1943 bronze Lincoln cent will be auction in the Stack’s Bowers Galleries New York Americana Sale Rarities Night Auction on 24 January 2013. The coin was found decades ago by a man from New England while searching rolls of cents.
In 2010, a Lincoln cent struck in bronze at the Denver Mint in 1943, has been sold for a world's record price of $1,700,000 by Legend Numismatics of Lincroft, New Jersey. You can read about it here: World's most expensive penny.
The special coin is graded MS-63 RED by PCGS. Before this coin were found, numismatist believed that the coins have been struck on leftover planchets from 1942, which this coin is not.
The piece was first examined by numismatists John Pack and Melissa Karstedt at the Stack’s Bowers Galleries offices in Wolfeboro, N.H. “My initial impression was that the coin was struck at the U.S. Mint, but both the strike and color of the planchet raised some question as to the exact nature of the piece,” said Pack.
Since the steel planchets of 1943 were harder than those leftover copper ones intended for the 1942 coins, and the errors were, in theory, struck from fresh 1943 dies, the expectation is that the error coins struck on leftover planchets should be sharply struck throughout, which this coin is not. Secondly, the somewhat lighter tone would be unusual for a 1942 bronze planchet, though less so for the shell-casing alloy planchets used on cents of 1944-46.
Pack’s secondary supposition was that this might be a coin struck on a planchet intended for a world coin, as it is well known that the United States Mints were striking millions of coins for several governments at this time. With this, the process of discovery accelerated, and the coin was sent to PCGS for further evaluation, including testing of the composition. The results, a weight of 3.08 grams, and a composition of 91.7% copper, 7.5% zinc, 0.8% silver, did not match the expected standards of a 1942 cent blank, nor did it match the known compositions of similar-sized world coins struck at Philadelphia.
Pack discussed the coin with several numismatists, including Roger Burdette, who has researched 20th-century coin production in great detail, using considerable original source materials. Burdette’s research, soon to be published in a new book on the wartime coinage experiments, revealed that the Philadelphia Mint struck experimental cents in late 1943 to test the production of the shell-casing planchets in preparation for their large-scale use in 1944. Further, the Mint documented these tests by date and recorded that 1943-dated cent dies were used, also giving compositions for the test planchets. This piece of data was fascinating, and the thorough presentation in Burdette’s coming work might well change the way certain “errors” of this period are studied, including 1943 bronze cents now in collections. However, in regards to the present coin, it provides no concrete answer, as the composition did not match those recorded for these experiments, either.
The test of time and further study, including elemental analysis of other 1943 bronze cents, will likely shed some light on the piece featured in the Stack’s Bowers Galleries New York Americana Sale Rarities Night Auction. Today, however, what is known about the coin makes it a great prize, as it is indeed an outstanding example of a classic American rarity. It is a bronze cent of 1943, and it was struck at the Philadelphia Mint. It is also, at present, a unique composition and potentially a very important discovery for the story of 20th-century American numismatics.
“Bronze cents of 1943 are high on the list of famous rarities,” said Chris Napolitano, president of Stack’s Bowers Galleries. “We expect this coin to attract worldwide attention.”
The Stack’s Bowers Galleries New York Americana Sale will span over three days, from January 22-24, 2013 and will cover all aspects of U.S. coins, tokens and metals. Lot viewing will begin Monday, January 21, 2013, at Stack’s Bowers Galleries, New York. Color images and detailed descriptions of all sale items will be available on stacksbowers.com. Online bidding and pre-auction bids will begin December 28, 2012 on stacksbowers.com, by email at auction@stacksbowers.com and by phone at 800.458.4646.
Source: stacksbowers.com.
