The Mistake That Should Have Been Impossible
A small number of bronze planchets — leftover blanks from 1942 — remained inside the minting equipment. These should have been removed before steel cent production began, but under wartime pressure and high-speed manufacturing, accidents were inevitable.
When the dies for the 1943 penny were set in place, they struck whatever blanks were still in the press.
Most of the resulting coins were steel, as intended.
But a handful — an extremely small handful — were accidentally struck in bronze.
These rare pieces were never meant to exist. They were never listed, tracked, or recorded. They slipped into circulation unnoticed, mixed among millions of steel pennies, waiting to be discovered.Continue reading…
