Expert: Jim Lawniczak - 9/5/2007

Question
Hi, I search around questions about "Silver Pennies" but they all seem to have been happened during the 80s on. So my question is:

Does my Silver Penny have a value? It being that it was made in or the date on it says, "1974"? In silver for sure because there are light scratches on it for I am guessing people have tried to check if it was copper, but on the back , in the middle of the Licoln Monument, theres a melt mark like as if someone used a soldering iron and in the middle of the mark is a small poke mark. Otherwise, I'm just concerned if there is any value

Answer
Hello, Jeremie, well, I cannot give you the stock answer here that I use for "silver pennies" -- that I believe they are the copper coated zinc cents with the copper coating stripped off.  That's because the zinc cents debuted in 1982.  The 1974 cent was made of copper.  So, a couple possibilities.  One -- someone coated your copper cent with a silver colored coating after it was minted.  If so there is no additional value.  Two -- the mint made a mistake (that's the only possibility that has extra value).  The mistake might have been to strike a cent on a silver dime planchet.  But if they did that, the coin you hold would be the size of a dime and not the size of a cent.  Check to see if that is true, Jim Lawniczak