I found a silver colored Canadian penny in my change?
I found a 2001 Canadian penny while sifting through my change. The coin is not brown like the typical pennies but has an entirely silver color. You can see a small amount of brown only on the edge of the coin. The coin seems to be in relatively good shape and it does not seem as if the brown has just "rubbed off". Has anybody ever heard of or seen a coin like this before? Is it possibly a mint error? And finally does anybody know if it has any value?
Thank You!!
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The most likely reason is that someone plated it with something after it left the mint. Back in the old days, we used to do it with mercury from a broken thermometer. Of course, we know better now, but it was back in the days when our gasoline had lead in it, color TV’s gave off radiation, and everybody smoked.
It is possible to chemically strip the copper plating off a cent, so that may have been what happened.
There is a possibility that the blank simply didn’t get its copper coating before it was struck into a coin. The Royal Canadian Mint has excellent quality control, but any time you make nearly a billion of something (like they did with the 2001 cents), some things are bound to slip through.
If you’ve got an accurate scale, the first thing to do would be to weigh it. A normal cent should weigh 2.25 grams. If it’s under about 2 grams, you’ll want to take it to a coin dealer and get his or her opinion.
I can’t help you too much on the value, other than to tell you that US cents that missed getting plated usually sell for around $40.
Maybe someone painted it with silver color or electroplated it with another metal.
Most likely someone fooled around with this penny. And it’s not a mint error. Because the mint usually does quality control and destroys defective coins.
I have somethig similar to you I call it a “penny dime” it is a 1994 Canadian dime that has our penny stamped on it. Not sure how this has happened, and I wounder if it is rare? Also I would like to say that the canadian mint can’t stop all coins from slipping through hence “Rare coins” There is a coin show this coming weekend I am going to take my coin there and see how much it is worth as well as how rare it is.