Anyone ever find a 1943 steel penny?

gameoftag · Oct 7, 2011

I have a lifelong dream to find at least one of every type of coin to fill a Dansco 7070 album (there are over 60 types and I know it will probably never happen) This morning, I was looking at what I need yet. Among the many types I am missing, I'm missing a steel penny, and I got to thinking, has anyone ever found one in the dirt?

I would think dirt would destroy a steel penny in no time, so I'm thinking this may be a coin I never actually find detecting, plus, I'm thinking it would not register as a coin seeing it is made of steel.

Anyone out there? If so, when did you find it and what type of dirt/location was it at?
Just curious.

Hook · Oct 7, 2011

there's been a few that posted finding a wheat spill and sandwiched in between a couple of wheats , they found a rusty steel disc...an obvious steel penny rusted away. you'll have to settle for a non dug one for your collection , unless you want a rusty slug in the slot :lol:

48pan · Oct 7, 2011

My grandfather gave me three of them when I was a kid putting together a penny collection. Best of luck finding one.

gameoftag · Oct 7, 2011

Hook said:
there's been a few that posted finding a wheat spill and sandwiched in between a couple of wheats , they found a rusty steel disc...an obvious steel penny rusted away. you'll have to settle for a non dug one for your collection , unless you want a rusty slug in the slot

Thanks Hook. I have a few in my collection, so I may have to do that, but I'm not giving up hope. If I find everything else, then I'll settle for one from my collection.

I may bust one out and see how it even reads on my machine. I'd be curious to know. I wonder if maybe someone could find one (well rusted but identifiable) if they knew what to look for. Perhaps they are being passed up by everyone as trash.

Bell-Two · Oct 7, 2011

Yep I got one just last week, and like others say it was found in a penny spill, there were six coins in the hole the other five were wheats dated between 1942 and 1946 in the picture you can see the spot on one of them where the steelie was resting.

gameoftag · Oct 7, 2011

Bell-Two said:
Yep I got one just last week, and like others say it was found in a penny spill, there were six coins in the hole the other five were wheats dated between 1942 and 1946 in the picture you can see the spot on one of them where the steelie was resting.

Awesome. So they do show up from time to time, but it looks like the ground is not kind at all to them.

KingTotsalot · Oct 7, 2011

To find one by itself you would have to be hunting in All Metal mode too....which most folks do not do. Best chance to find one is in a pocket spill!

cnr_dogs · Oct 7, 2011

Found one the otherday in pristine condition!!! of course it was in the return/reject slot of a coinstar machine.

JerseyJoe · Oct 7, 2011

I have three or four of them in excellent condition. I think I got them all at one time when I got change at a store. Pretty cool stuff.

Doggy Daddy · Oct 7, 2011

I found a rusty penny sized disk a while back. Thought it may have been a steel cent.

xlt in MD · Oct 7, 2011

yup found 2 of them. one was between a penny and a quater and was in pretty good shape.

Silversmith45 · Oct 7, 2011

I found a coin spill of wheats. I put the detector on pin point mode to recheck for more coins and found a rusted '43. Same size as the other wheats which were all in the '40's too. I recently buried some in good condition (In plastic bags) in my GPS caches, next to other coins. Similar to this one.

AceGVSU11 · Oct 7, 2011

The only one I have found was from CRHing

DIGGER27 · Oct 7, 2011

Uh...yea.

Found these three on one hunt in an old park and didn't realize what they were till I got them home and tumbled them a little.
They came up in the mid 70's on my F2...a reading I have never seen before.

I already had these in my penny book that I have been dragging around with me since I was a kid in the 60's.

Then, I picked up 4 rolls of pennies from my bank one day for a little CRH because I was bored and dumped them out and got mad because I thought I got some other hunters untumbled coins, but then I noticed they were not dirty, but rusty.
Most of them were rusted so bad you could not tell what they were, but after some tumbling, (bottom pic), they started to look a little better.
I figured they were probably in a jar or cigar box sitting in someone's damp basement for about 60 years.

I ended up with 199 steel 1943 pennies out of 200.
Mostly plains, a few D's and S's too.
Every one of them stuck to a magnet, too.
Darn!

lawdog1 · Oct 7, 2011

Silversmith45 said:
I found a coin spill of wheats. I put the detector on pin point mode to recheck for more coins and found a rusted '43. Same size as the other wheats which were all in the '40's too. I recently buried some in good condition (In plastic bags) in my GPS caches, next to other coins. Similar to this one.
View attachment 117988
View attachment 117989

I dug one in really good condition a while back. Does it count if it was cached by Silversmith?

Michaeltime · Oct 7, 2011

1943 Wheat Penny

I made a sad choice of putting my old coins in the trunk of my car back when . I had a few steel 1943s in the sock and they got rusted from a short stay in there. only lightly though cleand up fine. Never did that again.

M6 White's Greenville Michigan and looking for hunting buddies around here willing to drive. Had to give up my license, tunnel vision and night blindness. I bump a lot of stop signs hunting and other signs and chuckle thinking someone might be watching me beating up signs.

Michaeltime · Oct 7, 2011

As bad or worse than a steel penny find

Hunting a old park with a buddy in 1986 i found a wheat he found a indian head penny my wheat was paper thing his indian almost as bad . They had dumped the pool there and it killed all the coins left in the ground there. You cold read the dates as if nothing had happened to them but my wheat was paper thin and you could have easily bent in half with two fingers.

M6 by White's My idea of easy picking is a screwdrive on coins I am sure are just modern coins probe go to the side and cut a slit in the grass then reprob the coin and lift it I usually put finger and thumb in to pick out he coin. Makes for a very nice clean spot . You all may have seen the after effect of filling in a hole days later and rain settled the soil down making a pot hole in the lawn. I don't get that with a slit in the grass. If the numbers are right for a copper penny I will cut a plug or a silver coin other than that I chose in sidewalk search to leave the property owner happy with me looking. For silve I am going to take my chances on him being upset I want the coin I'll do my best to make it look right.

M-scope · Oct 7, 2011

Found 1 buried with a copper wheat...Very rusted though...

hssea · Oct 7, 2011

Interesting. We've talked about what a steel penny would look like and ring up as. I'll have to pass info to my better half

AlinMN · Oct 7, 2011

Here is one I found and it rang up just like a zincoln only is was deep so I dug it:

Anyone ever find a 1943 steel penny?

gameoftag

Hook

Elite Member

48pan

New Member

gameoftag

Bell-Two

Senior Member

Attachments

gameoftag

KingTotsalot

Official Tot Lot King

cnr_dogs

Elite Member

JerseyJoe

Doggy Daddy

Elite Member

xlt in MD

Senior Member

Silversmith45

Elite Member

AceGVSU11

Sponsor

DIGGER27

In Memory Of

lawdog1

Elite Member

Michaeltime

Elite Member

Michaeltime

Elite Member

M-scope

hssea

Senior Member

AlinMN

Elite Member

Attachments

Similar threads