$1,700,000.00 PENNY. How To Check If You Have One! | US Mint Error Coins Worth BIG Money

you're watching JD's variety channel hello everyone and welcome to this coin tutorial in this video I'm going to show you how to check for pennies that are worth anywhere from fifty thousand dollars up to a potential 1.7 million which one of these sold at auction but before I get to the main story I'm gonna give a little bit of a backstory on what our coins are made out of today so here is a beautiful shiny 2016 penny a shield back design now these pennies even though they look beautiful when they're minted they are ninety seven and a half percent zinc with a two and a half percent layer of copper over the top of them so after they're battered around for a while or exposed to air or in the case of metal detecting you know been under the ground for a while they just deteriorate so for this video I grabbed a couple from my metal detecting band to show you what they look like after they've been in the ground for a little while they literally just fall apart but prior to nineteen eighty two and some of them in 1982 as I said it was a transition year the whole way back from from 1982 the whole way back to 1909 except for one year which I'll explain in a moment the u.s. pennies were made out of predominantly copper 95% to be exact so here's the look here's a look at a wheat penny that was pulled from circulation in nice condition it's a little bit worn but it's got a nice color to it just a beautiful coin 1938 wheat penny that is 95% copper now here is a penny a wheat penny that I found metal detecting that is 95% copper and you can see it's in a little bit rough shape but it's not too bad but in comparison to those you can I think we could all agree that it still looks a lot better so that's just an idea to show you how our pennies have been for around the last hundred years now other than from 1909 up until nineteen eighty two of the ones being made copper there were there was one year where were made out of steel that's right I said steel in 1943 the government needed copper for the war so the United States Mint made the US pennies out of steel with just a thin layer of zinc over top of them but they are 99% steel and you can see here I got a 1943 with no mint mark which means it was minted in Philadelphia one from Denver which you can see the D and one from San Francisco you can kind of see the asunder there I showed a few in different conditions you can see how they deteriorate over time now where the big money comes in is if you can find one of these 1943 pennies that was not made of steel and it was made of the copper they were worth a lot of money because they were accidentally produced there were if you have a coin like this before it was stamped it would just be basically a blank round piece of copper which is called a planchette so some of those planets ended up in where the steel pennies were supposed to be struck so there are 1943 pennies that are made out of copper and there are some that came out of every mint from the Philadelphia the Denver and San Francisco now I'm going to show you the main way to check if yours is real or not now this is not foolproof but it gives you a good idea of whether you have one is an obvious fake or not because anyone could take one of these 1943 pennies you know played it in copper and boom you're a million millionaire not that easy because you would have to have it authenticated in anyway but basically the main reasoning is that the steel pennies are going to stick to a magnet and the copper pennies are not so if you have a 1943 penny that is made out of copper and it doesn't stick to a magnet you could be into a lot of money so I'm gonna show you an example here this is the 1938 wheat penny I was showing you that is predominantly copper and see they do not stick to a magnet that's the one I found metal detecting also by the way the zinc ones don't stick to a magnet either now over to the steel pennies pickling right out of the middle here boom sticks right to the magnet no effort whatsoever even that small magnet can pick up a couple of them so there's a lot of people that make fake ones but they're made out of steel underneath so if it sticks to a magnet it's it's definitely fake if it's you know somebody that tried to plate one of these in copper now here was something that was pretty interesting out metal detecting I found a large spill of old coins all in one hole and you can see all of them here I have a variety of wheat pennies I found this beautiful silver Mercury dime in the hole along with a buffalo nickel some old Jefferson nickels and this was all in one hole I'm guessing they had fallen out of somebody's pocket or maybe they were even buried who knows but one of the things I pulled out of the hole was this right here when I saw it compared to all the other pennies I was really surprised and I knew almost right away that this was going to be a steal penny and it was kind of dumb luck that I found it with all these other coins because normally I wouldn't find a steal penny with a metal detector because i discriminate steel out so here's we're gonna test it right now to find out if it is indeed a steel penny and if it is that's what it would look like had it been in the ground this has been in the ground since around World War two and here's one that is next to one that was almost brand new so you can tell how they just it's completely trashed so anyway all the other pennies I found take the magnet room and they don't stick and then that one penny I found boom it's a 1943 steal time war cent I never tried to clean it up because I didn't want it to fall apart more but maybe I'll get it under some water and see if it cleans up even just a little bit but there you go guys I hope you enjoyed the video a little tutorial on how to check for some valuable coins and a little bit of background on what has happened to the our pennies over the last 100 years so thanks for watching and take care

Channel: JD's Variety Channel

Views: 19,920,307

Rating: 4.5732484 out of 5

Keywords: Penny, Pennies, US Coins, Rare Coins, Steel Penny, Steel Cent, JD's Variety Channel, 1943, 1943 Penny, 1943 Copper Penny, Coins, Error Coins, US Mint

Id: W3QvI0QL3LI

Length: 7min 12sec (432 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 18 2016