1952S penny with steel coating ?

rollmeupAbe

Looking through a bag of pennies today I came across this 1952S lincoln penny which looks like it was made of a combination of copper and steel. Does anyone know if this could be authentic or is this a hoax someone was trying to accomplish ? The obverse looked ok but the reverse had a lot of junk on it so I had to clean it off. Under the crud you can see some copper spots which makes it look like the coin is coated with steel.

1952S obverse

1952S reverse

cosmos66

This is just a guess but it could be coated with mercury and the coating is rubbing off in spots. People used to perform magic tricks like that ... rubbing a penny with a mercury soaked rag to make it change colors.

Just a thought

richbeat

Mercury coated or plated is most likely what it is. A post mint alteration with no premium. The reverse pretty much tells the tale.

rollmeupAbe

Thanks for the guesses. It is always interesting to hear what ideas people have to explain unusual coins. I never knew people used mercury to change the color of copper but I bet my high school science teacher who schocked us to teach us about electricity would do something like this.

foodude

Mercury is not a material that you want to handle, ingested, or breath (vapors). If the coin deos have mercury on it, it should be placed in a sealed container, and well out of the reach of children.

FullHorn

I got this one out of a junk box at at show and took a magnet to it and it has a slight pull but nothing compared to a 1943 cent so
Im guessing its just coated with steel?

and it looks like copper peeking through the shoulder area.

Shamika

It's most likely nickel coated. This is a very old and very common experiment done in general chemistry lab classes demonstrating a reduction reaction.

Cam40

i got a 1945 wheatie like that from a roll.

i think those are mercury dipped......bad news.

someone must have wondered if the coin was `silver` through and through so they put a nice deep scratch
in the obverse field to check.

GaCoinGuy

I have one from the 50s as well...very slighty magnetic with 2 copper spots showing on opposite sides of the rims.