I found a penny at work that is half silver / half copper. It has a very definitive line across both sides, almost as if it was dipped in something, that separates the silver from the copper. It is a 1978 penny, and has some scratches on the face side. Everything else about it looks normal, and the silver part does not wipe / scratch off to reveal copper underneath. It is as if it is actually made of silver. I‘m just wondering if anyone has any idea what this penny could be / how it can be half silver and half copper. If it‘s nothing I guess I‘ll just add it back into my change bucket and get my 1 cent for it!
I highly doubt that's silver, it's the wrong year for almost all coins to contain any sort of silver, even if the penny was struck on the wrong metal (which does happen occasionally). But that's definitely an oddity. Pre 1982 pennies were made some 95% copper and 5% zinc -- no silver. There are a few things that could have happened, the mint could have screwed up the metals and/or have been using badly mixed metals. The coin could have undergone some sort of chemical reaction. Or someone could have electroplated it. There are probably other things that could have happened too. Honestly, what I would do is find a local coin expert and get his/her opinion. You never know, you could have something exceedingly rare. Though chances are, that the coloring just had to do with environment and/or human fiddling.
It's not half silver-half copper, because no such coin blank has ever been produced at the mint. Coin blanks are punched out of rolled sheets of the metal that the coin is made of. There is no way to get a half/half blank with this process. So you have a coin that was fiddled with somehow after it left the mint. It's not going to have any collector value. But it does have more copper value than what it will buy, so hang onto it.
They made multiple of them, even for the dollar coin (the face btw is Susan B. Anthony), in the adventure that they have been circulated than they're nicely well worth the very similar as any dollar, nickel, dime, or quarter is nicely worth.
I highly doubt that's silver, it's the wrong year for almost all coins to contain any sort of silver, even if the penny was struck on the wrong metal (which does happen occasionally). But that's definitely an oddity. Pre 1982 pennies were made some 95% copper and 5% zinc -- no silver. There are a few things that could have happened, the mint could have screwed up the metals and/or have been using badly mixed metals. The coin could have undergone some sort of chemical reaction. Or someone could have electroplated it. There are probably other things that could have happened too. Honestly, what I would do is find a local coin expert and get his/her opinion. You never know, you could have something exceedingly rare. Though chances are, that the coloring just had to do with environment and/or human fiddling.
It's not half silver-half copper, because no such coin blank has ever been produced at the mint. Coin blanks are punched out of rolled sheets of the metal that the coin is made of. There is no way to get a half/half blank with this process. So you have a coin that was fiddled with somehow after it left the mint. It's not going to have any collector value. But it does have more copper value than what it will buy, so hang onto it.
They made multiple of them, even for the dollar coin (the face btw is Susan B. Anthony), in the adventure that they have been circulated than they're nicely well worth the very similar as any dollar, nickel, dime, or quarter is nicely worth.
