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1943 Steel Cent (variety 2) refers to a U.S. one-cent

coin that was struck in steel due to wartime shortages

of copper. The Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco

mints each produced these 1943 Lincoln cents.

The unique composition of the coin (low-grade steel

coated with zinc, instead of the usual bronze composition)

has led to various nicknames, such as Wartime Cent,

steel war penny, and steelie. The 1943 Steel Cent features

the same Victor David Brenner design for the Lincoln cent

which had been in use since 1909.

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Freshly minted, they were often mistaken for dimes.

The steel cent is the only regular-issue United States

coin that can be picked up with a magnet. The Magnets

in vending machines (which took copper cents) placed

to pick up steel slugs also picked up the legitimate steel

cents. Although no bronze cents were officially minted

this year, a few coins were struck in error, known as the

1943 copper penny. An estimated 40 examples are believed to have been struck, with 12 confirmed to exist. Examples were discovered after the War, with the first two in 1947, and another in 1958. An example was first sold in 1958 for $40,000; one mint condition specimen sold for over $200,000 in 2004.

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Many people have counterfeited the coin by copper-plating normal 1943 cents. The copper cents differ

from their steel counterparts in four ways :*Genuine 1943 copper cents will not be attracted to a magnet. Copper-plated steel cents will exhibit a strong magnetic attraction.
*Copper cents weigh 3.11 grams. Steel cents weigh 2.70 grams. *The numeral 3 in 1943 has the same long tail as the steel cents. Alterations from later-dated copper cents will be noticeable when compared side-by-side with genuine steel cents. *The quality of the strike is exceptionally sharp, especially around the rim, because the soft copper planchets were struck with the same (higher) pressure used for the steel cents.

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In an error similar to the 1943 cents, a few 1944 cents were struck on steel planchets left over from 1943. There are two explanations given for why this happened. One explanation is that steel planchets were left in the press hopper and press machines from the previous year were mixed in with copper planchets. Another explanation credits the error to the production of 25 million  Belgian two franc pieces by the Philadelphia mint after that country's liberation from the Nazis. These coins were of the same composition and the same planchet as the 1943 cents, but they differed slightly in weight. In all, in 1944 steel cents were fewer in number than their 1943 copper counterparts, and are even more valuable; one such example minted in San Francisco sold for $373,750 in an August 2008 auction held by Heritage Auctions; this was the highest auction price ever for a Lincoln cent until September 23, 2010, when it was superseded by a 1943-D bronze penny.

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1943 steel penny continued to circulate into the 1960s, the mint collected large numbers of pennies and destroyed them.

1944 -1945 Shell-Case Pennies
Mint developed a process whereby salvaged brass shell casings were augmented with pure copper to produce an alloy. Cartridge cases were salvaged for the coinage of 1944-1946, after which the prewar (bronze) composition was resumed (variety 1).