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cheeple
Penny Sorter Member
USA
67 Posts |
 Posted - 11/01/2006 : 01:17:49
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I found a 1977 gold penny without any mint marks on it, I don't know if it's gold plated or solid gold but the fact that it does not have the imprint of the place it was minted at sticks out to me.
Has anyone ever heard of a penny like this?
know of a place I could research this?
write me directly cheeple@yahoo.com
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Cerulean
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
993 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2006 : 06:47:44
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My knowledge is that gold-plated coins are simply mint-issed regular coins that some third person has plated with gold. This was not done by the Mint. This explains why the mintmark is still there. Odds are your find is gold plated rather than solid gold, and I would consider it a mere novelty. There's no market for them that I'm aware of, but a few people tend to collect them anyway.
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1 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2006 : 22:25:29
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Hi, I found this forum today, searching for info on a coin I came across while counting all my change. I had no idea this "hobby" existed - although I remember in the late 80's one of my girlfriend's fathers hoarded coins - he supposedly had thousands and thousands of dollars in his attic in bags - he never believe in the value of paper money or using banks. I just thought it was interesting.
Anyway, I found what looks like a very yellow, shiny - brass? penny today in my change container. It's a 2000, but it's definitely thinner compared to a regular 2000 copper penny. Also Lincoln looks to be a little narrower and the detail finer. Maybe it's an optical illusion, but all the details on the penny, both sides, appear to be smaller, along with the penny itself. Wouldn't a plated coin be heavier and lose detail?
And where is the mint marking on pennies. I know where it is on a quarter, but I don't see it on my pennies.
Thanks
-em |
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73 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2006 : 04:58:09
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There were 4.4 billion pennies in 1977 without mintmarks and 4.2 billion with a D mintmark. The mintmark is under the date on a penny but they don't all have mintmarks. I'm guessing half do.
If the penny were gold rather than 95% copper and 5% zinc it would weigh twice as much as a normal pre-1982 penny. I highly doubt somebody went through the trouble of faking a penny of pure gold, gold plating would be much easier. |
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73 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2006 : 05:11:40
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| A 2000 penny isn't copper, it's copper plated zinc. In 2000 there is a Wide AM penny. This means the A and M in AMerica are spaced further apart than on a normal penny. Compare the letter spacing to a normal looking penny, if th A and M are futher apart on the 2000 penny then I'd save it separately, especially if it looks like it hasn't been circulated at all. Worth more than a penny if this is the case, maybe $0.20, maybe $5...depends on how fine the detail is and if the AM thing is the distinguishing feature. |
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Metalophile
Penny Collector Member
USA
320 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2006 : 11:01:44
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For many years the Philadelphia Mint did not add mint marks, only Denver and San Francisco did. So any coins from those years without mint marks are from Philadelphia.
Back in the 80's I did some experiments on plating. I released a few silver plated pennies into circulation, not more than 20. All it takes to make those is a bit of silver nitrate solution.
Note: I didn't do the plating to attempt fraud by passing them off as dimes. It was just the novelty of it.
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73 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2006 : 15:13:19
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Did you just drop them in a silver nitrate solution and it evenly coated or did you have to electroplate the penny and/or thoroughly clean it first?
Also curious as to how many pennies you could coat with 100 grams of silver nitrate (looks like that is the smallest size a bottle of silver nitrate comes in after doing a brief search, of course I didn't check the molarity/molality of the 100 gram bottles...). Does it matter if their pre-1982 or post-1982 and would this work on other metal, like could you silver plate a quarter, or say your aluminum utensils (or would that be a health hazard)?
I would obviously do it for the novelty, but if 100 gram bottle costs $50 and gets me 50 pennies then $1/penny is a little pricey for a novelty hobby. Sure maybe I could sell most of them for $1/each (as silver plated, not as fake silver proofs or something) and that would reduce the novelty hobby cost. I could probably buy one somewhere but what is the fun in that, I much prefer the enjoyment of playing with it and getting it to work and understanding how it works rather than just buying one.
I realize you said you did this back in the 80's so maybe you don't remember. |
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pencilvanian
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
2209 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2006 : 20:23:04
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quote:
Originally posted by emmarie
Hi, I found this forum today, searching for info on a coin I came across while counting all my change. I had no idea this "hobby" existed - although I remember in the late 80's one of my girlfriend's fathers hoarded coins - he supposedly had thousands and thousands of dollars in his attic in bags - he never believe in the value of paper money or using banks. I just thought it was interesting.
Anyway, I found what looks like a very yellow, shiny - brass? penny today in my change container. It's a 2000, but it's definitely thinner compared to a regular 2000 copper penny. Also Lincoln looks to be a little narrower and the detail finer. Maybe it's an optical illusion, but all the details on the penny, both sides, appear to be smaller, along with the penny itself. Wouldn't a plated coin be heavier and lose detail?
And where is the mint marking on pennies. I know where it is on a quarter, but I don't see it on my pennies.
Thanks
-em
Hi emmarie and welcome to the forum.
I suspect, as far as the narrow thickness of your 2000 penny is concerned, it is due to the fact the US Mint makes so many pennies, that the sheets used to make some cents may have been thinner than what is usually used. I have found some pennies thinner than others so this may be the reason for the different thickness.
Also, the detail of the cent may be different compared to other cents due to slight changes used in the obverse die used to strike the cents. When the die gets worn out after so many strikes (about 100,000 coins minted) it is replaced with a new die. Perhaps what you have is a penny that was one of the first of the pennies struck with a new die, one that was made a little bit differently from what is normally used. |
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26 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2006 : 11:03:57
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quote:
Originally posted by cheeple
I found a 1977 gold penny without any mint marks on it, I don't know if it's gold plated or solid gold but the fact that it does not have the imprint of the place it was minted at sticks out to me.
Has anyone ever heard of a penny like this?
yea,
I own a restaurant and get calls from advertisers wanting to sell me bulk orders of gold plated pennies to use as advertising gimmicks.
They are available really CHEAP in bulk. I've never seen nor bought any though. |
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Metalophile
Penny Collector Member
USA
320 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2006 : 09:43:00
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quote:
Originally posted by eccentric
Did you just drop them in a silver nitrate solution and it evenly coated or did you have to electroplate the penny and/or thoroughly clean it first?
Also curious as to how many pennies you could coat with 100 grams of silver nitrate (looks like that is the smallest size a bottle of silver nitrate comes in after doing a brief search, of course I didn't check the molarity/molality of the 100 gram bottles...). Does it matter if their pre-1982 or post-1982 and would this work on other metal, like could you silver plate a quarter, or say your aluminum utensils (or would that be a health hazard)?
I would obviously do it for the novelty, but if 100 gram bottle costs $50 and gets me 50 pennies then $1/penny is a little pricey for a novelty hobby. Sure maybe I could sell most of them for $1/each (as silver plated, not as fake silver proofs or something) and that would reduce the novelty hobby cost. I could probably buy one somewhere but what is the fun in that, I much prefer the enjoyment of playing with it and getting it to work and understanding how it works rather than just buying one.
I realize you said you did this back in the 80's so maybe you don't remember.
100 g of pure silver nitrate would plate quite a few pennies, indeed. I'm looking at the latest hard copy Sigma-Aldrich catalog right now (web site is You must be logged in to see this link.), and they do sell a 5 g bottle "reagent-plus" grade for $16.20. Not sure if they'll sell to an individual.
I think I usually started out by making up a 0.10 N solution. That would be 16.99 g silver nitrate in a liter of water. But that's fairly concentrated. I probably started out with that solution because that's a common concentration to use in the lab. I think you could probably get satisfactory results with 0.020 N or even lower.
I did it both ways, both electroplating using a battery, alligator clip leads, and a piece of silver (I think I used a dateless standing lib. quarter). I think a 1 oz. bar of 0.999 will work better, if you can spare it, as I think the 10% cu in the coin will go into solution, and gradually turn it blue, and then you'll be plating a cu-silver alloy. Silver goes to the + terminal of the battery and object to be plated goes to the - terminal. A cleaner object should plate better.
Looking back now, I think I would place a current limiting resistor (have to experiment to find a good value) in place to control the speed of the plating. Also, now I would try experimenting with adding a tiny bit of acid to improve the conductivity of the solution.
One problem I had was with getting the silver to stick efficiently to the Cu. I would plate for a few seconds, and black sooty, tiny silver particles would form on the penny's surface. Periodically I would take it out and wipe with a paper towel. (may want to wear gloves, as you'll get black sooty silver deposits on your hands if you touch the silver nitrate solution).
As you correctly surmised, the process will also work without any electrical current. Copper, being easier to oxidize, will tend to replace the silver ions in solution, and silver has a tendency to be reduced to metallic silver. I found I could just dip the penny in silver nitrate solution for a while and achieve similar results, although slower. Also, you will not be able to build up as thick a layer as with electroplating, because as soon as the surface is mostly silver . . . the reaction stops. Thus your layer is very, very thin, and very easy to rub off if you handle the penny afterward.
I don't know about plating aluminum with silver. I would think that would be difficult. I do know that I was never able to plate Cu on aluminum objects. Probably has something to do with the thin layer of Al2O3 which forms on the surface of aluminum. Copper just won't stick to it.
Silver plated utensils should be safe. People use them all the time as well as solid sterling silverware!
Metalophile |
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73 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2006 : 14:42:48
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quote:
Originally posted by Metalophile
Silver plated utensils should be safe. People use them all the time as well as solid sterling silverware!
Metalophile
Yeah, I meant a health hazard if I tried it myself....could screw it up  |
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Is my Gold Penny I found Worth Anything
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