Unusual Coin Fetches Pretty Penny
Laguna Beach Independent.
Friday, August 1, 2008

A 1943-S bronze Lincoln cent.

A rare penny found by a teenaged collector in pocket change in Long Beach 64 years ago has been sold to a Laguna Beach resident for $72,500.

The coin will be displayed next week at the World's Fair of Money in Baltimore, Md. and in September at the Long Beach Coin, Stamp & Collectibles Expo.

"It's one of the few known 1943-dated Lincoln cents struck in the wrong metallic composition at the San Francisco Mint.   This brown-colored coin was mistakenly made of bronze when it was supposed to be made of gray, zinc-coated steel in 1943 because copper was urgently needed that year for U.S. efforts in World War II," explained Laguna Beach resident, Steven L. Contursi, president of Rare Coin Wholesalers of Dana Point, California who purchased the coin.

The incorrectly made cent was found in 1944 by then 14-year old Kenneth S. Wing, Jr. of Long Beach, who later became a prominent architect.   Wing died in 1996 and the coin remained in his family's possession, kept in a bank safe deposit box until recently.

Numismatic Guaranty Corporation of Sarasota, Fla., a rare coin authentication company, has certified the coin genuine.

Zinc-coated steel cents, produced by the millions by the mint, are worth only a few cents each in circulated condition.   They will stick to a magnet; however, the handful of known, genuine 1943-dated Lincoln cents mistakenly struck in a bronze alloy of 95 percent copper and 5 percent tin and zinc will not.

Contursi will display the newly-authenticated wrongmetal penny at the Long Beach stamp expo.