These days most people think pennies are pretty much worthless. There is even an anti-penny group that wishes the government would get rid of the coin once and for all because it costs more money to make them than they’re actually worth. On the other side of the issue are those who want to keep the penny in circulation and see it as an asset to our national currency. Regardless of what side you may fall on, if you ever were to come across a 1943-S copper penny, you’d be very happy.
You would also be a millionaire, because one of the incredibly rare pennies recently sold for one million dollars. The reason why these humble coins are worth so much all comes down to a mistake the government made. At the time they were minted, in 1943, Word War II had been raging for several years.
Copper was becoming increasingly hard to come by and it was much more valuable towards the war effort than other metals. In those days, copper pennies were being melted down turned into shell casings and steel was being used to make pennies. However, the United States mistakenly minted and put into circulation a few thousand copper ones that are now worth a whole lot more than face value.
Collectors search far and wide for 1943-S copper pennies and one man, Bob Campbell, bought one years ago for $20,000. In light of the recent million dollar sale, the return on his investment has proven to be huge. The odds of finding one of these coins is extremely rare, only one pops up every ten years or so, and everyone wants to snap them up if and when they’re offered for sale. Today there are only approximately 20 of these copper pennies known to exist and all were minted in either Philadelphia, Denver, or San Francisco.
If you ever find a 1943 penny and want to know if it’s a valuable one, there’s a simple test to figure that out. Simply take a magnet and see if the penny sticks to it. If it does, it’s made of steel and is only worth about 50 cents. If it doesn’t stick to the magnet…you may be the luckiest person ever and the coin could fetch you over one million dollars.
There are other valuable rare coins out there that you may want to keep an eye out for as well. One is the 1955 double die penny which is worth over $25,000. Some 20-40,000 pennies were created with distorted, or doubled hence the name, features caused by a misaligned part used in the minting process. Another is the 1937-D 3 legged Buffalo nickel that holds an estimated value of $1,000 or more, depending on its condition.
As its name implies, the image of the Buffalo is missing a front leg which was caused by a damaged die at the Denver mint. There are many other high worth collectible coins out there and if you’re lucky you may come across one, so don’t toss aside your change or fail to pick a penny up if you see one on the ground!
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