AboutMyCoinSteel Coins
Steel coins were struck when the usual metal was needed elsewhere, most famously the 1943 United States steel cent, and their value comes from collector interest in that story rather than from the steel.
There is no metal floor under a steel coin, so everything one is worth above its face value is collector demand. Dates run 1943, across cents.
Assume face value and work upwards only on evidence. The metal is not the variable for steel coins, which leaves the date, the mint mark and the condition.
Steel appears in coinage for one of two reasons: wartime shortage, or modern cost-cutting with a plated core. Neither produces a coin with metal value. The 1943 United States cent is in this group and is the coin most often brought to a dealer by someone who believes they have found silver.
The same coins with the arithmetic already done, and nothing else on the page, are at steel melt values.
Steel coins by denomination
Pick the denomination you are holding.
Steel coins
1943 Wheat Penny (No Mint Mark)
A 1943 Wheat penny with no mint mark was struck at Philadelphia, is zinc-plated steel with no silver in it at all — the same metal, and the same value, as a 1943-D and a 1943-S.
1943-D Wheat Penny
A 1943-D Wheat penny was struck at Denver, is zinc-plated steel with no silver in it at all — the same metal, and the same value, as a 1943 with no mint mark and a 1943-S.
1943-S Wheat Penny
A 1943-S Wheat penny was struck at San Francisco, is zinc-plated steel with no silver in it at all — the same metal, and the same value, as a 1943 with no mint mark and a 1943-D.