Laguna Beach collector sells 1943 penny for more than $100,000
Steve Contursi sold the rare coin in a confidential sale to an East Coast collector.
Orange County Register
By CHRIS DAINES and KELLI HART
Monday, August 4, 2008

A 1943-S bronze Lincoln cent.

Laguna Beach resident Steve Contursi sold a rare coin he bought recently for more than $100,000 to a very happy collector on the East Coast.

Due to a confidentiality request from the purchaser of the rare 1943 penny, Contursi could not reveal the exact price the coin sold for or who he sold it to, but he could confirm that it sold for six figures.

The sale was made at the American Numismatic Association World's Fair of Money in Baltimore last week and was just completed, Contursi said.

Contursi was happy to sell the rare coin to the passionate collector but was a little disheartened to see it go.

"I was a little bit sad because it was a unique penny that also affected me as a child," Contursi said. "I wasn't looking through my change to find an 1804 silver dollar because they wouldn't be around.   But I was looking through my change to find a 1943 penny."

Contursi, who owns Dana Point-based Rare Coin Wholesalers, acquired the 1943 penny that was mistakenly cast out of a bronze planchet – the prepared metal disc before it is formed into a coin.

The coin was originally found in 1944 by Kenneth S Wing Jr. while collecting Lincoln pennies.   Wing died and his heirs, who never saw the coin until they opened the safety-deposit box, took the coin to Contursi's rare-currency company to be evaluated.   When he determined it was authentic, he bought it.

The coin was part of an error by the U.S. Mint in 1943 when the mint switched from using copper for pennies to steel.   Copper was needed at the time to make shell casings for bullets in World War II, and the few pennies struck in copper were perhaps an employee joke or mistake, Contursi said.

The mistake was widely known by coin collectors at the time as only a few pennies were struck in copper in the U.S.

"It’s a pretty well recognized rarity," Contursi said. "Being a coin collector since I was a little child, I remember people were always looking for the penny struck in copper instead of steel."

A simple magnet test failed to attract the San Francisco-minted bronze coin.   A normal penny in 1943 was cast out of zinc-coated steel to save copper for the World War II war efforts.

Contursi purchased the rare coin from Wing’s sons, which is even rarer as it came from the mint in San Francisco, which released only a handful of the copper pennies, about seven of which have been found.

Contursi showed the rare coin at the American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money in Baltimore recently where he entered into a deal with the current confidential owner.

Contursi had planned to display the coin, and more of Rare Coin Wholesalers' large collection of rare currency, at the Long Beach Coin, Stamp and Collectibles expo in September but the penny sold rather quickly.

"A coin like this comes by very rarely," Contursi said.