1943 US one cent sells for $200,000+

[Mackaydon]

MIAMI — A one-cent US coin that was minted in bronze by mistake in 1943 sold for more than $200,000 at an auction in Florida, the auction house said on Friday.

Heritage Auctions said that no more than 15 penny coins from the period were minted in copper instead of zinc-coated steel, which was being used during World War II because copper — a component of bronze — was reserved for munitions.

The 1943 bronze penny “is the most famous error coin in American numismatics” and the first of its kind to be put up for auction, Heritage said in a statement.

The story of the bronze penny goes back to 1947, when Don Lutes Jr., then a high school student in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, discovered the coin in the change he received from his school cafeteria.

Being a coin collector, Lutes was immediately aware of its unusual nature and he decided to keep it.

Lutes, who died in September, mandated that the auction proceeds be donated to the Berkshire Athenaeum at the public library in Pittsfield.
Don.....
PS: Presale est.: $174,000; hammer price:$204,000.

 

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[Mackaydon]

How could this of happened?
The history behind the 1943 bronze cent transcends the coin-collecting hobby. A small number of bronze blanks, or planchets, were caught in the trap doors of the mobile tote bins used to feed the Mint's coin presses at the end of 1942. These few planchets went unnoticed and were fed into the coin press along with the steel wartime blanks (popularly referred to as "steelies"). The few resulting "copper" cents were lost in the flood of millions of "steel" cents and escaped detection by the Mint. They quietly slipped into circulation, to amaze collectors and confound Mint officials for years to come.
Don...

 

[Yak1366]

Great info, thanks for posting!!!

 

[port ewen ace]

How could this of happened?
The history behind the 1943 bronze cent transcends the coin-collecting hobby. A small number of bronze blanks, or planchets, were caught in the trap doors of the mobile tote bins used to feed the Mint's coin presses at the end of 1942. These few planchets went unnoticed and were fed into the coin press along with the steel wartime blanks (popularly referred to as "steelies"). The few resulting "copper" cents were lost in the flood of millions of "steel" cents and escaped detection by the Mint. They quietly slipped into circulation, to amaze collectors and confound Mint officials for years to come.
Don...

kinda like the "cleaning the gun" scenario--- yeah, the magazine is out-- but remember to check the pipe(line) OOOPPPSS!!..... some dummy had poop in da chute

 

[1235CE]

It's a fantastic story and one I know well.....Pittsfield, Mass. is only about 15 minutes away from me and I knew Don as he was the president of my local coin club back in the mid 80's and I actually held this coin as a teenager. RIP Don, what a find.

HH all!

Greg

 

[Skifisher]

An "Oops" then is a "heck yeah" now. Wish there were just a few more so I has a chance of owning one.

 

[sprailroad]

Interestingly enough, I have dug two 1943 steel cents that were copper "coated" over the years, and I've seemed to have mis-placed one of them. The first one I believed was an attempt at a "counterfeit", the second one after really searching around, found that for a short while there was a company (the name of which escapes me) that had coated a number of the 43's with copper and sold them as a "novelty" item I THINK in the early 50's?, after it was discovered about the errors and a semi craze began when people were searching their pocket change in hopes of finding one. The first one dug some of the copper had flaked off, the second, I did not really know I had, I only found out by doing a little testing with a detector, grabbed a wheat and a few other coins, and there was no response from the wheat??, (discrimination) tried another and no problem, took a look at the one and, yup, a 43. It LOOKED copper, but looking closer, you could just make out a little wear to expose the steel and it stuck to a magnet. So more then likely it was two of those "novelty" 43's that ended up in general circulation. Wish I knew what I did with the first one.

 

[dognose]

thanks for posting. A good sale all around.

 

[Raider19962]

Didn't one of these just sell for $1.7 million?

 

[PetesPockets55]

Didn't one of these just sell for $1.7 million?

No. That amount was an erroneous estimate of what it would sell for.

By the way that estimate was NOT the official auction house (Heritage?) estimate. Evidently someone writing a story for a news service did a quick internet search and found one that had sold for over a million recently (much higher grade on the previous sale). That writer made up their own estimate. Other news outlets latched onto the higher one and an urban legend was born.