The Invisible 1943 Steel Wheat Penny

RobNC

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Thought I would bring this up as an interesting find. Many years back when I owned a Tesoro Cortes I found a 1943 Steel Wheat Penny.
Ever since then I've tried it on other detectors and that coin is essentially invisible.
So far the list of detectors that can't pick it up:
Garrett Ace 250=Nothing
Minelab X-Terra 70=Not a trace with 2 coils
Minelab Equinox 600=Not a trace on any mode or with horseshoe
XP ORX= only if it is very close detects as 00

Has anyone else ever found a 1943 Steel Wheat Penny and if you did what detector did you find it with?
If you have a 1943 Steel Wheat Penny would you mind testing it for results?
I find this to be an odd coin and really lucky the old Tesoro Cortes back then found it.
 

I have 74 of them. Not found, but inherited. I will try with my Garret AT pro and tesoro tejon.
 

I have 74 of them. Not found, but inherited. I will try with my Garret AT pro and tesoro tejon.

Thanks, I look forward to hearing how they do with those units.
 

Sure, will try my two machines on the one I carry in my wallet...tonite.
thanks, gave me thought...
Wonder how many I might have passed-over some, discriminated-out, as iron
Ferrous...! Yuk! =p

Well, both of my machines knew there was "something" under the coil, but at
readings below the normal amount of disc. level set....
Yes, I would normally pass over the steel wheat cents...!!
 

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I found one in 1988 with a Whites 6000di coinmaster .. but it was in a spill that contained about 5-6 wheats..
 

I used a re-plated 1943 that was lying on my desk from a Coinstar find.

Using my AT Max w/concentric 6x9 elliptical & coin on the surface:

"All Metal" registered a higher pitch tone in the 19-28 range (even on the coin edge).
"Custom" I haven't set anything up but still got a lite scratchy blip.
"Coins", a little audible blip if I moved slooooowwww enough.
"Zero" registered a lower pitch tone in the 8-18 range.
 

I dug one in the 80's with my Deepseeker ADS III. The coin itself was gone, but the impression of the coin in the sandwiching dirt was still there.
 

I always run all metal & no disc on ATPro--- hey, wit da iron targets---- ya never know what might be lurking in "terra" :dontknow:
 

If the Zinc plating on the Steel core is what is causing the 1943 Steel Cents to be invisible to some metal detectors, then maybe you found a new coating for Stealth Aircraft to be invisible to radar. If it turns out to be the case, the Military could have saved billions of dollars on research and outfitting aircraft to be only somewhat invisible to radar!
 

They do detect much stronger in the ground than they do once they are out. I always assumed it was the rust "halo" in the ground that caused it.
 

You only know if you dig it...IMHO: dig everything! :icon_thumleft:

Yes, you will dig lots of junk, but I can assure you the keeper finds will increase.

For example, I've dug gold with the AT Pro from 36 - 69 and we know that lots of junk lives in the lower numbers.
 

I have found 1 and found it with the AT PRO
 

Lol, I used to call this the disappearing signal, I've got a few that I found in the 70s with a Garrett Master Hunter TR... If the park was heavily fertized you would dig this signal and it would just be a rusty type coin spot, you would hear the leftover zinc halo, when you disturbed the spot it was gone.. Nice find for sure if you could dig one now.. Geo
 

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