TJPOPELKA
Jr. Member
1943 copper-too "good" to be true
I am new to this column and very much a novice when it comes to treasure hunting-so please bear with me as I tell this story if I ramble to much.
I just bought a garrett ace 250 about a month ago-starting detecting just in my yard to learn how to use the machine. Found some wheat pennies & 1 silver mercury dime (along with a lot of junk)-needless to say-after the dime I am now hooked-i have "the bug".
Anyways, I finally got the "nerve" to leave my yard a try the local beach-not much luck. The second day out I went to an areal called portage point in my town-it's not the official beach-but a place where people do go swimming, walk their dogs, etc. I detected for about 3 hours, found a total of 51 cents-with one being a wheat cent. I didn't really look at the coins until I got home-more focused on just learning how to use the machine. About 10:00 p.m. after my kids went to bed-i pulled out the coins to grab the wheat cent to add it to the coin book I had just bought-looked at the date-it was a 1943 plain penny. I could not believe my eyes-this coin was copper colored-not steel. I looked at it under my
magnifing glass very closely-the date was definetly 1943 and did not look altered. As I said, I am a novice to coin collecting & metal detecting-but I know enough to know that this would be a find of a lifetime! I was so excited I thought I was going to have a heart attack!! I yelled to my wife that she had to come see this! I have found a penny that may be worth a couple thousand dollars (little did i know how much it would really be worth) We went to google and did some research-finding out it could be worth over 100,000 dollars! I thought I was gonna die! Could it really be true? Do things like this really happen to normal everyday people? After a minute or two we calmed down a little and read the whole article that was pulled up. It stated to be carefull if you ever happen to come across one of these as they are counterfitied because of their scarcity & value. There are two easy tests that could be done to weed out the "obvious counterfits". One was to check the date to make sure it wasn't a 1945 that was changed-I checked it again and it sure didn't look changed. the second test was to use a magnet on it to see if it sticks-copper won't stick to a magnet-but an altered steel penny to be made to look like it was copper would stick to the magnet. Well, you can probably guess what happened next-my wife pulled a magnet off the fridge and we tried it-it stuck to the magnet-it was a fake!! I can't remember the last time I had been that disappointed-I just couldn't beleive it-it looked so real!!! I tried a couple other copper pennies on the magnet just to be sure-sure enough they didn't stick!! But every time I tried the 1943-it stuck(at least 10 different times).
Oh well, I just have to get over it-I still look at it and can't believe it is not copper-whoever altered it did a good job.
I live in a small town in Upper Michigan (Escanaba) with a population of about 16,000 people-what are the odds of finding a counterfit altered penny in this area? I just can't believe it!? I will definetely have this memory for the rest of my life! How would a person get a copper coating on a steel penny anyways? Wouldn't it be an expensive process-which is so easy to determine with the magnet test? Sorry if this is a dumb question-I am new to all of this. Any responses would be greatly appreciated-thank-you for your time.
p.s.-I wish I could post a picture to show eveyone who reads this-but i don't have a scanner-probably wouldn't know how to use one if I did! Are they complicated to use-or are they user friendly? Anyways, I just have accept the fact that it is fake and move on-find some new treasures.
I am new to this column and very much a novice when it comes to treasure hunting-so please bear with me as I tell this story if I ramble to much.
I just bought a garrett ace 250 about a month ago-starting detecting just in my yard to learn how to use the machine. Found some wheat pennies & 1 silver mercury dime (along with a lot of junk)-needless to say-after the dime I am now hooked-i have "the bug".
Anyways, I finally got the "nerve" to leave my yard a try the local beach-not much luck. The second day out I went to an areal called portage point in my town-it's not the official beach-but a place where people do go swimming, walk their dogs, etc. I detected for about 3 hours, found a total of 51 cents-with one being a wheat cent. I didn't really look at the coins until I got home-more focused on just learning how to use the machine. About 10:00 p.m. after my kids went to bed-i pulled out the coins to grab the wheat cent to add it to the coin book I had just bought-looked at the date-it was a 1943 plain penny. I could not believe my eyes-this coin was copper colored-not steel. I looked at it under my
magnifing glass very closely-the date was definetly 1943 and did not look altered. As I said, I am a novice to coin collecting & metal detecting-but I know enough to know that this would be a find of a lifetime! I was so excited I thought I was going to have a heart attack!! I yelled to my wife that she had to come see this! I have found a penny that may be worth a couple thousand dollars (little did i know how much it would really be worth) We went to google and did some research-finding out it could be worth over 100,000 dollars! I thought I was gonna die! Could it really be true? Do things like this really happen to normal everyday people? After a minute or two we calmed down a little and read the whole article that was pulled up. It stated to be carefull if you ever happen to come across one of these as they are counterfitied because of their scarcity & value. There are two easy tests that could be done to weed out the "obvious counterfits". One was to check the date to make sure it wasn't a 1945 that was changed-I checked it again and it sure didn't look changed. the second test was to use a magnet on it to see if it sticks-copper won't stick to a magnet-but an altered steel penny to be made to look like it was copper would stick to the magnet. Well, you can probably guess what happened next-my wife pulled a magnet off the fridge and we tried it-it stuck to the magnet-it was a fake!! I can't remember the last time I had been that disappointed-I just couldn't beleive it-it looked so real!!! I tried a couple other copper pennies on the magnet just to be sure-sure enough they didn't stick!! But every time I tried the 1943-it stuck(at least 10 different times).
Oh well, I just have to get over it-I still look at it and can't believe it is not copper-whoever altered it did a good job.
I live in a small town in Upper Michigan (Escanaba) with a population of about 16,000 people-what are the odds of finding a counterfit altered penny in this area? I just can't believe it!? I will definetely have this memory for the rest of my life! How would a person get a copper coating on a steel penny anyways? Wouldn't it be an expensive process-which is so easy to determine with the magnet test? Sorry if this is a dumb question-I am new to all of this. Any responses would be greatly appreciated-thank-you for your time.
p.s.-I wish I could post a picture to show eveyone who reads this-but i don't have a scanner-probably wouldn't know how to use one if I did! Are they complicated to use-or are they user friendly? Anyways, I just have accept the fact that it is fake and move on-find some new treasures.
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too bad. i guess early retirement is out of the question! 
at any rate it makes a cool conversation piece!
