A Mint error(?) penny found in circulation today

AnkurJ

Hi everyone,

I was looking through some change I recieved today, and one of them was an odd looking penny. The date is not rare, 2004, but it seemed like there was no copper on the penny. It looks like a WW2 steel penny from the obverse, and on the back there is slight yellowing along with some silver showing. Anyone have a clue as to what this might be? A penny struck without copper?

Ankur

robec

Sounds like an unplated cent. Did it look something like this.

GoldenEyeNumismatics

yea, probably an unplated cent

although it could be an authentic mint error there are also many pennis that have fallen victim to school science experiments and have been plated by students or had the metal removed from them.

AnkurJ

Robec, yes it looks just like that. Do they have any value to them?

How can people remove the copper layer?

Ankur

LALASD4

This kind of error is tough to tell if it is real or not from a picture.

aballein

we used to file small cuts into the rims of pennies and drop em in HCL 6 in our chemistry class..let em sit for a while and come back all that was left was the copper shell...if hydrochloric acid eats only the zinc then i dont know how someone would take the copper off a penny without damaging the zinc planchet